Swan Song Station
by Jax118
Summary: Second story in the WMC series. Dean has worked hard to keep the fuselage survivors alive while Sam has worked just as hard to keep the tail end survivors alive. What happens when they finally reunite each side? How far will Bobby and John go to figure out what happened to Dean and Sam?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or LOST.**

On the first night after their plane had crashed into the ocean, after everyone had settled down from the shock and finally began to take into account their dire situation, a survival count had been made. Sam couldn't even recall who the person had been, at the time, that had suggested and carried out the task, but that person had managed to look past the fatalities of the day and confirm their group at twenty two people that remained alive. Twenty two people that had entered a plane, in Australia, as strangers and had exited amidst chaos and death that were expected to survive together and collectively find their way back to civilization.

It had been forty five days on the island and not only were they no sooner to finding a way back to the real world, but their group number had also been cut in half. More than half. They were, officially, down to six people and the discovery of the morning could have very well shaved that number down even further.

"Where could he have even come from?" Sam asked out loud as he shook his head ruefully and narrowed his eyes towards the wall of bamboo. The same wall of bamboo in which he and Eko had tied up an unknown and unconscious man in an effort to watch him closely until they could determine if he was hostile or not.

Sam had never been in such an aggravating situation in his life, where the air was constantly tinged with fear while the unknown was thrown at them time and time again. Even hunting the supernatural didn't twist his stomach around like this. Normally he had researched whatever nasty thing his dad had found down to the letter and while there had been plenty of injuries during his life, he always felt confident that the Winchester men would prevail. It was that same assurance that had made his decision to leave for college so easy.

Now, though? Now, the only thing that he knew for sure was that this man had washed up on shore while Cindy and Libby had been attempting to catch more fish to feed their group. The how and why were still evading him and probably would until the man regained consciousness.

"That man is unconscious and rather than help him out, we just go and tie him up. Does anybody else think this is too drastic?" Libby mused out loud as she fixed him with a sympathetic gaze. Sam tilted his head from side to side as he carefully considered her question. He'd be lying if he said that he hadn't thought the exact same thing, especially with the uncomfortable position of the man's limp head as it hung against his chest. He really didn't seem to be a threat to them at all.

"When you take into consideration that he could have been planted on the beach in order to take someone else from our group," Ana Lucia sniped sarcastically. "No, I don't think this is drastic at all."

_Twenty two people down to six, _Sam thought with a wince. He stomped down his feelings about the man's comfort and readily conceded to Ana Lucia's point. Based on the two attacks they had suffered before their group had retreated away from the beach, there was no telling what the people already on this island were capable of.

"Ana Lucia, he's unconscious," Libby argued.

"Yeah, and we all thought that Goodwin was just another regular passenger on our doomed plane," Sam gently reminded her.

Libby opened her mouth and closed it again as Ana Lucia shushed them both vehemently. She pointed across the clearing to the captive man as he let out a painful groan. "I think he's finally waking up."

Sam turned and watched with rapt interest as Eko stepped up close to the man and observed him closely for several minutes as the man struggled to lift his head from his chest. "You guys don't think that Eko's gonna do anything too rash, do you?" Libby asked.

Eko waited until the man was able to lift his head up completely and hold it up before he reached forward and tugged down the blindfold that Sam had tied over the man's eyes as a precaution. Sam watched as the man kept his gaze on the ground for several moments before he looked up at Eko and allowed a grimace to twist up his features. Sam could easily see the confusion and fear on the man's face that he tried to hide underneath disdain as his grimace became a sneer. There was no way this guy had been planted on the beach, not with the genuine fear and surprise on his face.

"Who are you?" Eko asked him slowly. The confusion on the man's face grew exponentially as Eko moved closer to him. "Where are you from?"

The man continued to sneer up at Eko before he opened his mouth and spoke quickly and decisively in a foreign language. "Korean," Sam muttered as he shook his head in disbelief. He shared a pointed look with Ana Lucia before he turned away from the scene and crossed arms across his chest. "Does anybody have any clue what he's saying?"

Ana Lucia rested her hands in her jean's back pockets and shrugged around a sigh. "Sorry, but my specialty is English and broken Spanish."

"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but this has to mean that he isn't dangerous, right?" Bernard asked as he stopped next to Ana Lucia. "The man doesn't even speak English."

"That doesn't mean anything," Ana Lucia argued vehemently.

Sam weakly nodded his head in agreement as he realized that he was still torn down the middle regarding this man's intentions. How could he not be? After everything that their group had gone through, even he had to admit that it was safer to be overly cautious than casual about something as strange as a man washing up on the beach of the island they were stranded on. "Ana, we found him in the water…unconscious," Cindy reminded her carefully.

"Yeah, you did," Ana Lucia agreed. "But, he also has a broken handcuff on his wrist." If they were to be honest with themselves, there were a million and one reasons that each of them could think up that would confirm that this man was bad news. However, there were probably also several reasons why he wasn't.

"I am not sure that he's actually a threat," Eko admitted as he walked back towards them and stopped in front of Sam. He leaned most of his weight on his handmade cane before he shrugged at Ana Lucia's murderous expression.

"See?" Libby gestured to Eko.

Ana Lucia allowed her features to soften as she dropped her eyes to the ground and evenly breathed in and out several times in an effort to calm herself down. "Look, away from this island…in real life, I'm a cop," she informed them openly. "Maybe it would be in our best interest if I ask him a few questions before we all decide to release him and give him a humanitarian medal."

"That'd be a great idea, if it weren't for the whole language barrier," Sam pointed out. Ana Lucia scrunched up her nose at the reminder that their captive didn't seem to speak English before Sam let out a frustrated sigh. He glanced over his shoulder at the man in the hope that something better than playing a crude version of charades would spring to his mind as he saw the man struggling against his bonds.

"You tied his ropes tightly, right?" Sam asked Eko as he nodded over at the man.

"Yes, he will not be going anywhere unless we release him," Eko stated plainly. Sam nodded sagely and glanced back over at the man as he stopping struggling long enough to compose himself and then jerked away from the bamboo wall…hard. A loud crack hissed through the clearing as the branch Eko had tied his hands to snapped away from the rest of the wall. The man didn't even take a moment to be amazed that he was free before he took off back towards the beach where he had been found.

"Shit, he's loose!"

Ana Lucia and Eko spun around and took off after him on the path towards the beach with Sam hot on their heels. It had been a stressful month and a half for all of them, but Ana Lucia had taken every attack and abduction personally. She blamed herself, and as a result, she refused to allow the remaining members of their group to be subjected to the same fate. Sam knew if that meant the direct incapacitation of this man before they knew if he was a threat or not, just because he MIGHT be a threat, then so be it.

Sam couldn't let that happen. He wouldn't let that happen.

He could smell the salt in the air intensify with each step that brought them closer to the beach and a solitary thought invaded his mind. Was it just a coincidence that this man was running back to the exact location where he had been found or was he deliberately leading them into a trap?

"Michael! Sawyer!" Sam heard the man yell as he rounded a corner right in front of Ana Lucia. All three of them followed in time to watch him leave the cover of trees and kick up sand as his feet connected with the beach and he continued to run.

"Jin!" another voice yelled back in surprise.

"He's not the only one on the beach," Sam hissed against the burning in his lungs as the information spurned Ana Lucia to run faster and break away from him and Eko. "His people are waiting for us," she yelled back at them over her shoulder as she exited the trees and stopped at the edge of the beach for Sam and Eko to catch up to her.

"Others! Others!" The man yelled out, in fear, to two other men as he collapsed onto the sand in front of them. They both knelt down to check on him as he pushed their hands away. "OTHERS!" He shouted again as he motioned over to the trees where all three of them stood and watched the scene unfold before them.

The tall blonde man in the group stood back up and cradled his arm slightly before he marched towards them, rage clear on his face. The closer he got to them, his expression hardened and Sam knelt in anticipation as the man reached them just in time for Eko to swing his cane. It connected with the man's head hard enough to produce a sickening thud as the blonde man fell onto the sand like a rag doll.

Sam hung back and watched as Eko and Ana Lucia walked soundlessly past the unconscious man and both proceeded to engage the remaining two men until they were subdued as well. "You still wanna tell me that nothing's going on?" Ana Lucia snapped as she gently prodded the Asian man with her boot.

Sam knelt down and rolled the blonde man onto his back so that he wouldn't inhale any sand before he woke up. His eyes immediately darted to the darkened stain on the shoulder of his shirt and he moved the fabric aside. He winced in recognition of the wound that could only come from a lifetime of hunting and handling firearms. "I don't know what their intentions are, but this one's been shot," Sam pointed out as he stood back up and pointed down at the hole in the man's shoulder. "It looks like he might have dug the bullet out already, too."

Ana Lucia joined him and studied the wound in trepidation as she shook her head at their situation. "Let's get them into the pit. We can't find out anything until they wake up first."

* * *

"Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that we were able to squeeze in a few hours of peace and quiet," Dean commented out of the blue as he kept his attention focused on the darkened forest in front of him. He looked over as Sayid shot him a questioning look and let out a deep sigh. "However, all of a sudden, I'ma thinkin' that nobody's coming for us."

Sayid gently nodded his head over at Dean before they both turned back to the forest and each cast their own inquisitive gaze on the area. They had kept a vigilant watch on their group ever since they had returned from their hike with Charlie and Aaron. He couldn't help it, just because Dean could feel in his gut that all of their earlier warning bells were no longer going off, it didn't mean that he was ready to completely lower his guard. Apparently, Sayid felt the same way.

"Considering what we were told by Rousseau, this does all seem like it was just an elaborate rouse," Sayid agreed.

"Yeah, a rouse designed by her," Dean snorted in disbelief. "Still, we all fell for it." Dean reached behind his back, inadvertently, and allowed his fingertips to graze against the reassuring metal of the gun tucked into his jeans before he crossed his arms in agitation.

"Do you really think that it's plausible for these Others to be after Walt?" Sayid asked after a pregnant silence.

"I'll be honest, I don't know what to think," Dean shook his head. "Who knows if there are even Others out there. For all we know, Rousseau could have been just playing us based on paranoia."

"Yes, but to what end?" Sayid asked him in exasperation. Dean glanced over at him and immediately recognized a small amount of trust on his face and wanted nothing more than to roll his eyes at his naivety. "Dean, there is no way that she could have known about Ethan," Sayid argued further. "In fact, we wouldn't have even taken her threats into consideration if we hadn't already had a foreign person infiltrate our camp."

"Yeah, well...we're divided once again," Dean informed him. Sayid let out a choked noise of agreement as they once again allowed the silence to settle around them for a short moment. "You know, we've been back here for a while, shouldn't we have heard something by now? Anything?"

"Perhaps they have yet to return from this Black Rock," Sayid mused.

"Yeah, well, just between you and me...I'm about three seconds away from marching my ass over to the hatch to find out what's going on," Dean told him. "I never was that good with the whole staying patient shtick anyways." Sayid chuckled deeply in bemusement as Dean uncrossed his arms and finally allowed himself to relax marginally.

"Okay, no one is out there. No one is coming."

Dean and Sayid both turned together and gazed across the cave in beguiled interest at Charlie. He animatedly spoke to two other people from their survival group, a woman with a concerned look on her face and a man that seemed to hang onto every word that Charlie told them. For the life of him, Dean couldn't recall either of their names.

"But the…but the French woman said..." the woman meekly spoke up.

"The French woman is missing a bloody wing nut. I mean, it was all bollocks," Charlie explained to them fervently. "It's a ghost story. She set the fire herself."

Sayid inhaled deeply through his nose and shook his head in disbelief as Charlie watched both of the people in front of him take in the information he had just given them. He turned suddenly towards Sayid and Dean almost as if he felt their penetrating gaze on him and shrunk under their scrutiny. "What?"

Sayid's eyes dropped to the ground for a brief moment before he glanced back up and shook his head. "Nothing." He bestowed an exhausted smile on Dean before he turned and walked off towards one of the campfires that had been set up throughout the cave.

"No, it's not nothing," Dean corrected Sayid. He pointed over at Charlie and nodded his head away from the segregated groups of people in the cave. He waited until Charlie nodded in understanding before he walked over to where he had motioned, aware the entire time that Charlie had followed behind him sedately.

He turned back around and fixed him with a look of reprimand as Charlie's eyes widened slightly. "Sayid and I both instructed you not to let your prejudice with the situation run away from you. Did you even hear a word of what we said?"

"My prejudice with the situation?" Charlie asked incredulously as he studiously ignored Dean's question. "You mean the situation where some crazy ass woman kidnapped Claire's son?"

Dean rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond as Shannon shuttled past them into the caves, panic dripping from her frame. "Hey, has anyone seen Vincent?" She waited a moment as she was met with confused looks before she rolled her eyes. "The dog? Anyone seen him?" Both people around her shook their heads as she moved on to another couple close by to Charlie and Dean. "Has anyone seen the dog?"

"Wait, you already lost Vincent?" Dean asked in disbelief. Shannon spun around and shot him a murderous look as he held up his hands in surrender. "I totally didn't mean that the way it came out?"

"Oh, you mean the fact that the spoiled rich girl couldn't even do the one thing that a little kid asked of her?" Shannon spat at him. "That way?"

"Shannon..." Dean began.

"If you tell me to calm down, so help me god..." Shannon began as she marched towards the fire and picked up a spare torch. She shot him a scathing look before she stomped off back towards the cave entrance.

"Wait, Shannon, where are you going?"

She didn't even acknowledge the question as Sayid stood up from his seat next to the fire and shot Dean a quizzical look before he followed after her.

"This is what I'm talking about, Charlie," Dean told the man next to him. "We're already at Defcon Five with the tension around here. Please, don't make it worse."

"I'm not trying to make it worse," Charlie argued with him. "I'm trying to defuse the tension that was created when that loon told us that we would die if we didn't run or hide. Look around, Dean. Everybody in here is on edge because of that."

Dean glanced around at the people in the cave and couldn't help but concede to Charlie's point as he noticed that there was nobody asleep despite the late hour. Moreover, every eye that he caught was wide and held a hint of terror. "Ok, I'll give you that, Charlie, but you really do need to tone it down with the…"

"You're just like Jack, you know that?" Charlie spat with disgust.

Dean was so surprised at Charlie's statement and grimace that the words on his tongue momentarily got lost before he shook his head to collect himself. "Excuse me?" he argued.

"You and Jack are just alike," Charlie repeated. "You both have these secrets that concern each and every one of us, but you hold onto them until you think our delicate souls will be able to handle them."

Dean made a fist so tight that he thought he felt something in his hand pop as he shuffled forward to close the gap between himself and Charlie. He could feel the frustration that he had worked to bury for the last month and half come to head inside of him as Charlie's smug smile slowly began to vanish with each step that Dean took.

"I said to let go of me!" Shannon screamed as she marched past Dean so quickly that he had to catch himself so that he didn't fall to the ground. "HEY!" Sayid shot Dean an apologetic look as he followed after Shannon and tried to grab her arm to stop her, which she shrugged off.

"Sun, have you seen Jin?" Shannon rambled as she stopped in front of her. "Is he here?"

Dean shared a confused look with Charlie before he followed after Sayid and Shannon. Sun stood up from her crouched position and dusted off her hands on her pants. She tilted her head in contemplation as she searched the faces of Sayid and Dean to determine if Shannon was being serious. "He is on the raft, with Michael, Sawyer and…"

"Walt is on the island!" Shannon yelled as Sayid once again tried to pull Shannon away from the area to calm her down as she only pushed him away from her.

"It couldn't have been Walt. He is on the raft," Sun tried to rationalize with her.

"I know what I saw!" Shannon argued. "It was him! It was Walt!"

"Shannon, please lower your voice," Sayid instructed her. "You'll upset the rest of the group."

Dean pushed through the few people still in front of him and stopped right next to Sayid in an effort to help him out when Shannon shook her head and spoke again. "I heard whispers."

Dean stiffened at her admission and shot an accusing look at Sayid as the crowd around them grew quiet at her admission. "Where?" Claire inquired.

"Everywhere," Shannon told her.

Dean could clearly remember his ordeal in the jungle after he had been injured by that damn arrow in his shoulder. When he took into account the way he had been raised, he didn't like to rely on anything unexplainable to describe any situation. Therefore, at the time, he had chalked up the whispers he had heard as delusions caused by blood loss. Eventually, though, Sayid had confirmed that he had also experienced the sound of whispers all around him that began and ended out of thin air.

"Did you tell her about when you were in the jungle?" Dean hissed to Sayid.

"No, the only other person I shared that information with, besides you, was Sawyer," Sayid explained to him.

"I don't understand. What whispers? Who?" Charlie asked.

"I don't know," Shannon told them with a defeated shrug. "Them."

"Do you think something happened to the raft?" Sun asked, as she choked down a sob.

"Dude, you better do something before the apprehension in this cave turns into full blown panic," Dean whispered as Sayid nodded and marched up next to Shannon. "Nothing has happened to the raft. Walt is with your husband, with Sawyer..."

"Sayid, I know what I saw," Shannon hissed.

Dean backed away from the group and collided with something solid before he turned around and met the tired smile of Hurley with Jack in tow. "Oh thank god," he muttered as he clapped Hurley on the shoulder before he stepped forward towards Jack. "It's good to know that you guys remember where the caves are," he remarked. Jack shot Dean a withering look as Hurley let out a scoffing laugh.

"Dude, trust me when I say that he's not in the mood," Hurley told him with a smile as he patted his shoulder and walked away from them.

"They're back!" Charlie exclaimed to the group in the caves as Hurley walked over to them.

"What's the problem, Dean?" Jack asked impatiently as he walked away from Dean.

"Oh, not much, actually…besides the fact that Shannon thinks that she just saw Walt in the jungle, which is the least amount of shit that's gone down over here," Dean snarked. "If you're interested in knowing, Charlie, Sayid and I just got back from a little hike of our very own a few hours ago."

Jack stopped his movement and turned very slowly to face Dean, his face a mask of barely restrained disbelief. "What hike?"

"Oh, we all had to go out into the forest and get Claire's son back from the same crazy ass French chick that had you guys searching for dynamite," Dean informed him.

Jack stared Dean down for any flinch of insincerity before he shut his eyes tightly in disbelief. "Are you actually telling me that Rousseau took Claire's baby?" he asked.

"Aaron." Jack opened his eyes and narrowed them in confusion as Dean shot him a knowing smile. "Claire's son's name is Aaron. I guess the trauma of being, first, knocked unconscious and then, second, having her child kidnapped forced the issue."

Jack let out a frustrated sound as he shook his head incredulously. "Oh, by the way…" Dean began. "Rousseau also copped to starting the fire that caused that big column of dangerous smoke we were all running from. Maybe someone should thank their lucky stars that she didn't also decide to lead all of you off of the closest cliff."

"It probably would have saved me from having to deal with everything else going on," Jack muttered as he spun around and marched away from Dean.

Dean had to admit that he had never seen Jack look as stressed out as he had just a few moments ago. "Hey, what's going on with him?" Dean asked Hurley as he passed back by him.

Hurley opened his mouth and shut it wryly before he shrugged casually. "Dude's just got a lot on his plate.

"Yeah, well, that's sort of the M.O. of everybody from our plane crash," Dean casually remarked as Jack hopped up on a landing in front of the entire group. He waited as the caves grew quiet while everyone gathered in front of him, hopeful for any sign of good news.

"Some of you may be unaware that Locke found…uh…a hatch in the ground about a half a mile from here." The group lit up in silent discussions as Dean crossed his arms and waited to see where Jack was going with this speech. "We left to blow it open so that we could hide inside…so all of us could hide inside, in case..."

Dean shot Hurley a curious glance at the defeated nature of their leader as Jack let out a deep sigh. "But…that doesn't matter now because it's not going to work. There's no way for all of us to get down in there tonight."

"Jack" Charlie interrupted him. "Where's Dr. Arzt?"

Jack's face slacked at the question as he shook his head morosely. "Um, he didn't make it."

"Dude, understatement," Hurley muttered as the entire group began to talk at once. Dean turned and looked up at him and couldn't help but notice the blood drain from his face. "Uh, Artz kinda got blown up."

Dean's jaw dropped as he glanced back up at Jack in disbelief at his cavalier attitude. One of their people had been blown up? What the hell kind of hike had they gone on? "Did you see them? Did you see the Others?" Shannon spoke up.

"Hey, Shannon, there are no Others," Charlie snapped at her. "We've already had this conversation."

"What the hell would you know about it?" Shannon snapped back. "You finally get invited on a hike and you didn't even see anything!"

"You have no clue what you're saying. There's no one out there!" Charlie yelled.

"You don't know that!"

"…and you're just making up rubbish!"

"Dude," Hurley muttered.

"Yeah, this is what I've been lucky enough to deal with," Dean informed him.

"Hey! Everything's going to be okay. Let's just take it easy," Jack interrupted them. He waited several moments for the entire group to wind down and refocus their attention on him. "Look, we're all going to be alright. We're going to stay here tonight, okay? Together."

"Then what the hell was the point of that entire trip?" Dean shouted. "What the hell was the point of one of our own being killed if we're just gonna do what Sayid and I said we should do the entire time?"

"I've already told you that we don't have enough time to get everybody into the hatch," Jack shouted back. "But, that doesn't matter anymore, we've still got four guns, right?" He waited until Dean nodded over at him reluctantly before he continued. "We'll put lookouts at all the entrances. We're all going to be safe as long as we stay together. The sun comes up in three hours and we're all going to be here to see that happen. I promise."

If Dean hadn't been present at Jack's speech, he probably wouldn't have believed that it had actually happened. Jack had just repeated back to their group a plan that Sayid and he had recommended, but had only been met with amusement. They had been treated like children. "Ok, now what the hell is he doing here?" Hurley hissed as Locke casually strolled past them with a bundle of cable under his right arm.

"Well well…it seems like you've finally come to the realization that Palpatine is, indeed, the bad guy," Dean commented as Locke stopped in front of Jack and spoke to him in hushed tones.

"Ha, nice!" Hurley laughed before he shook his head ruefully. "Star Wars aside, that guy is such an ass. You know?"

"Yeah, I know," Dean reassured him. "Do you?"

"Do you really think this is the smartest thing to do right now, John?" Jack asked, loud enough for everybody in the cave to hear.

"Between you and me," Hurley whispered as he watched the smug smile sneak up on Locke's face. "I think Locke is a bit too obsessed with the hatch. He blew it open even when I yelled for him not to."

"You're right, Jack," Locke answered Jack in the same volume. "The safest thing is to stay here and wait for morning…wait for these Others, to see if they ever show up…wait for the brave folks on the raft to bring help." Dean tilted his head as Locke lazily shrugged at his one observation. "Me? I'm tired of waiting."

Dean sneered as Locke walked right by him and Hurley and he returned the look of hostility with that of a pleasant smile that stretched from ear to ear. Dean just knew that if he were a few years younger and Locke was a few IQ points lower, that smug old man would have probably patted his head, depreciatively, as he'd passed. "Yeah, and he woulda lost an arm for doing it, too."

"What was that?" Hurley asked.

Dean tore his eyes away from Locke as he left the caves and chuckled as he realized that he'd voiced his threat out loud. "Nothing, man…just thinking out loud," Dean told him as he shook his head. He turned his attention back to Jack just as he jumped down from his stoop and walked over to Sayid to speak with him.

"Hey, I've been wondering something," Dean admitted to Hurley. "If you guys actually managed to get the hatch opened, why doesn't Jack want everyone in there? Is it just a hole and that's all?"

Hurley paled at the question as he shook his head in denial. "I don't know what Jack's full reasons are. For all we know, it could just be what he said and there isn't enough time to get everyone down there." Hurley's gaze shot to ground where he lightly kicked around a few rocks at his feet before he glanced up at Dean, a strange seriousness on his features that Dean had yet to be privy to. "Just between you and me, there could be an underground Twinkie factory inside of that hatch and I still wouldn't go down there," he explained. "It's cursed."

Dean's interest piqued at Hurley's explanation. He had heard of curses before, in fact, there was a whole entry about them in his father's journal that detailed John Winchester's own experiences with them. However, those were usually only just objects. He'd never heard of an entire place being cursed. Haunted, yes…but never cursed.

"Dean, you got a moment?" Jack asked as his voice interrupted Dean's musings. Dean glanced over at him dazedly and nodded over at him as Jack motioned to a secluded section of the cave for him to follow. "I'll be right back, dude. Maybe you can tell me about that curse when I'm done with Jack."

Hurley nodded down at him sheepishly as Dean followed Jack to where he had indicated and stopped behind him. Jack turned around slowly and studied the rest of the people in the cave to ensure that nobody had followed behind them or had any desire to eavesdrop before he looked at Dean square in the eyes.

"I was wondering if you'd be interested in heading back up to the hatch with me," Jack offered. "In about ten minutes."

Dean waited for Jack to divulge more details before he narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Wait, you want me to go back to the hatch with you?" Jack nodded as Dean tilted his head. "Is there any particular reason why you want me?"

Jack let out an exhausted chuckled as he furrowed his brow at the question and shrugged. "Mostly, the fact that it's late and dark. I spoke with Sayid and he agreed to stay here and keep watch, but I'd prefer to have someone that knows how to handle a gun at my back."

"Ah, so it's about protection, then," Dean surmised. "Well, while I make sure you get back to the hatch unscathed, who's supposed to protect me?"

"I will," Jack told him simply.

"Yeah…question, how often in your prestigious surgical life have you ever run into the need to handle a firearm?" Dean asked him with barely contained amusement.

"Not often," Jack admitted with a wry smile. "Still, I'm pretty sure I get the basics of point and pull the trigger."

"Yeah, you say that now, but just wait until adrenaline makes that point unsteady or jumpy," Dean told him with a wry smile before he nodded his head at Jack. What good was being stuck on this island if he couldn't poke a little fun at people?

"I just heard that you're going back to the hatch," Hurley announced as he stopped in front of Dean and Jack. Both men glanced behind Hurley at Sayid who held up his hands in surrender as a bemused smile crossed his face. "You guys are kidding, right?"

"About heading back? Nope, I'm completely serious," Jack told him as he grabbed his gun from the back of his pants and inserted the clip Dean had handed him.

"What about all that stuff you said about waiting 'til morning and watching the sun rise?" Hurley asked incredulously. Dean glanced down at his own handgun and popped his clip into place before he turned to Hurley and gave him a reassuring smile.

"Hurley, we've got people at the hatch that need their backs watched as well," he told him. "Mind you, Locke I'm not so concerned about, but Kate's there with him by herself."

"Can't Kate handle herself?" Hurley suggested warily.

"Generally, I'd say she could, but I'd rather not take any chances," Dean told Hurley as he tucked his gun back into the waistband of his jeans with a smile. "I'm pretty sure Jack feels the same way."

Jack nodded up at Hurley as he stood up and mirrored Dean's actions with his own gun. "I do."

"…and, besides, he's not going alone." Dean told him as he patted him on the shoulder and motioned for Jack to lead the way.

* * *

"Ok, where are they?" Dean asked as they entered the clearing where the hatch was located. The natural sounds of the environment around them was the only thing both of them could hear aside from a slight whistle as the wind hit the open door of the hatch.

"I'm not sure, maybe they already went down there," Jack told him as they both jumped on top of the metal. Dean positioned his torch over the darkened hole and glanced down in vain. It was just too dark and too deep for them to see anything past a few feet.

"I think this is the cable that Locke brought with him from the caves," Dean observed as he pointed to its path down the hole.

"Kate!" Jack shouted down into the darkness. "Locke!"

They both waited several moments for either of them to answer before Dean stood back up and set down his torch. "What are you doing?" Jack asked.

"One of them should have answered you by now," Dean commented as he grabbed the cable and gave it a generous tug. "What do you think? First or follow after me?"

"First," Jack told him as he grabbed the offered cable and began his descent into the darkness. Dean waited until Jack had climbed down a few feet ahead of him before he crouched over the blown open hole and followed leisurely after him. He wasn't even aware of how long this climb would be.

"Did you guys blow open the hatch with enough time during the daylight to get a good idea of how deep this shaft is?" he asked around a grunt.

"No," Jack grunted up at him. "We didn't even get back with the dynamite until the sun had gone down." Dean bit back a curse as his imagination ran wild and he realized they could be climbing into the great abyss for all they knew. "Locke dropped a rock down and based on the sound of the impact, he and Kate estimated it was about forty to fifty feet deep."

Forty to fifty feet…that was almost half the length of a football field. "That's just freaking great," Dean muttered as they both continued their descent down into the darkness. Dean kept his gaze focused on the opening above him and continued to gauge how far he had gone based on how far away the light from the moon got.

After several more moments of silence, Dean stilled as he heard the sound of water as it splashed around below him. "I'm down," Jack shouted up at him in glee as Dean scuttled down a few more feet and landed in ankle deep water.

"You guys must have destroyed a pipe or something when you blew open the hatch door," Dean guessed. He studied their surroundings as best as he could in the dark before his eyes adjusted enough to identify a sliver of light down a narrow hallway to their left. He patted Jack on the shoulder and pulled out his gun as he led the way towards it.

"This all looks like it was man-made," Dean confessed as his fingertips grazed against the cement walls that surrounded them as they walked past.

"Well, the hatch itself had to have been man-made," Jack told him. "The only things we didn't know was who had built it and what was inside."

Dean reached the sliver of light and marveled at the fact that it had come from an ajar door. A very thick ajar door. "Here, help me get this open," Dean requested. Jack nodded and tucked his gun back into his pants as he joined Dean on his right side. Dean counted down from three, quietly, before they both pushed with all of their weight against the solid mass as it began to move with noisy creaks.

"Holy shit, it's got to be made of steel," Dean hissed as he pushed away from the door, breathless, and studied the wider space they had opened. "What do you think? Can you fit through there?"

Jack gauged the space carefully. He nodded over at Dean before he crouched down next to it, sucked in completely and then squeezed through with very little hesitation. Dean chuckled at Jack's triumphant face from the other side and moved to follow Jack's example, exactly. He was relieved when he made it through easier than Jack had and let out a deep breath as he smiled up at him. "Well, that was fairly painless."

Jack chuckled at Dean's cavalier attitude as they both turned to assess the new room the door had led them to. "Wow…" Dean muttered as awe etched across both of their faces.

"What is all of this?" Jack asked as his eyes took in the large machines that surrounded the perimeter of the round room they were in. "What's it all for?" Dean could only gawk in stupefied shock as they both walked towards the desk in the middle of the room. They both came to a stop and stared down at the green screened Apple computer that sat peacefully in front of them.

"This looks like the kind of computer that teachers used to make us play Oregon Trail on," Dean observed. He glanced back up around the room as his eye caught the large white squared numbers that hung above a door in direct eye-line with the computer in front of them. He tilted his head as the last number flipped so that it had counted backwards. "What do you think that's for?"

Jack followed Dean's outstretched finger to the number on the wall and scratched his head at the whole situation. "It looks like some sort of counter," he guessed.

"Yeah, but for what?" Dean asked.

"Maybe this computer has something to do with it," Jack suggested as he reached forward and rested his fingertips over the 'execute' button.

Jack jumped as loud music poured through the room from unseen speakers and he quickly pulled his hand away from the computer so he could point his gun out in front of him. Dean spun around at the blaring music and backed away from the computer until his back collided with one of the concrete walls. He held his gun up next to his head and did his best to ignore Jack as he studied the round room for any intruders.

_Nuh-uh, I refuse to go down if Mama Cass is the last music I have to hear on this Earth,_ Dean thought as Locke appeared in the doorway to his right. "I wouldn't do that, Jack," Locke suggested calmly. Dean pressed himself further against the wall and safely in the shadows as Jack spun around and pointed his gun directly at Locke as he stood ramrod straight in front of them.

"Where's Kate?" Jack asked.

Dean's mouth snapped shut as he spotted the gun pointed at the side of Locke's head and bit back a curse. He caught Jack's gaze and shook his head at him as he remained very still in the shadowed area.

"Move and I kill him," an accented voice spoke from the shadows. "I suggest you put the gun down, now."

Jack wavered momentarily before he caught Dean's eye. Dean shook his head and pointed at his own gun as Jack immediately retrained his gun out in front of him. "Where's Kate?" Dean sucked in a deep breath and slowly started to move against the cement wall towards Locke and his captor.

"Jack, it's okay," Locke tried to reassure him.

"I said to drop it!" The voice next to Locke shouted again as he pushed his gun closer to Locke's head. Dean stopped his movement towards them and winced at the quick look of terror that crossed Locke's face. It disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared and Dean took that as his cue to quietly begin to move again. Just a few more steps and he'd be able to sneak up behind the person that had captured Locke and possibly Kate.

"Where's Kate?!" Jack yelled back. Dean tried not roll his eyes at the anguish in Jack's voice. He was pretty damn sure that if Jack didn't find out where Kate was soon, he'd get trigger happy instead just on principal.

"Kate's fine," Locke assured Jack. "Just put down the…"

"I'm not putting down anything," Jack spat.

Dean and Jack both jumped slightly as the man behind Locke fired his gun into the air. "Do you want him to die? Put it down."

Jack glanced over at Dean's trajectory and bit back a smile as he walked in an arc away from the shadows so that he was completely behind Locke. "Is this what you were talking about, Locke?" he asked sarcastically as he attempted to keep the attention on him. "Is this your destiny? All roads lead here?"

"Jack, calm down," Locke commanded.

Dean blew out a relieved breath as the man from the shadows relocated himself so that he was directly behind Locke and kept the barrel of his gun pressed into Locke's head. "Lower your gun or I'll blow his damned head off, brother!"

Dean raised his gun and couldn't help the smirk that graced his face. "You might wanna rethink that, asshole," Dean spat as he pressed his own gun into the man's curly brown hair. His smirk grew in satisfaction as the man in front of him tensed up slightly, but continued to face away from him. He could almost see the cogs turning in his head as Locke crouched down away from him before he turned around and absconded the gun that had been pressed into his head moments before.

"It's you," Jack murmured, a look of amazement on his face as he stared down the man in front of Dean as he put his hands up in surrender.

"Do you know this asshole, Jack?" Dean asked.

"Which one of you is him?" the man in front of Dean asked out of the blue. Dean shot a confused look to Jack and then Locke as Locke let out a deep sigh. "He thinks we're someone important."

"One of you has to be him!" the man shouted.

"He specifically asked me what did one snowman say to the other?" Locke chimed in as Dean shot him another crazy look.

Dean barely lowered the gun as he stared, incredulously, at the guy in front of him before he turned his attention back to Locke. "He asked you a riddle? Did you tell him that it smells like carrots in here?"

The man spun around so fast that Dean almost pulled the trigger. "You are him."

"If by him, you mean the guy pointing a gun at you, then yeah, I'm him," Dean told him with a smirk.

"They said that I'd know him when he answered the riddle," the man frantically told Dean as he stared at him with admiration.

"Oh they did, huh?" Dean told him with a wry smile. "Did they also inform you that every kindergartner in the country knows that riddle? My brother told me that one when I was thirteen…he was very proud of himself."

The man's smile remained on his face as Jack strode forward and looked him square in the eye. "Where's Kate?" Kate watched with rapt interest as she lowered herself down from a vent behind Dean and quietly selected a gun from the gun cabinet in the hatch before she loudly cocked it.

Dean and Locke both spun around and pointed their gun at Kate as she panicked and pulled the trigger on hers. They both ducked with Jack and Locke as the bullet connected with the aged computer behind them and destroyed it.

The admiration on the man's face melted away to reveal horror as he stepped away from Dean. "Oh my god, I have to…" he began.

"Nuh-uh, stop right there," Dean demanded as he held his gun, unwaveringly, pointed at the man.

"Dean, don't…" Locke began.

"Don't what?" Dean asked incredulously. "He had a gun pointed at your head, Locke. I'm also pretty sure that he had Kate locked up somewhere."

"He did, because of Locke," Kate yelled venomously.

Jack stared at Locke in rage as Dean let out an angry chuckle and shook his head in disbelief. "It seems to me that the only other place I'd wanna point this gun is at you, so you tell me what the best option is from your perspective," Dean fired back at him.

"You don't understand, I have to fix that computer," the man spoke up with a scared lilt in his voice. "If I don't, we're all gonna die."

* * *

"No," Sam told Ana Lucia as he shook his head at her idea. She only smiled back at him in satisfaction as he crossed his arms over his chest. "This isn't gonna work."

"It'll work alright," she assured him as she jumped back and forth from foot to foot in preparation for the needed blows. "Admit it, this is the perfect way to find out who they are and where they came from. Make them trust us."

"Yeah, it's a great plan," Sam admitted. "The only flaw is that they probably saw you on the beach when you helped Eko take them out." Ana Lucia's haughty smile waned slightly as she rolled her eyes at Sam's reasoning. "The worst thing that we could do is underestimate these people. If those men are who you think they are, then they're smart enough to remember one of the people that attacked them."

She stopped her movements as Sam's argument washed over her completely. Her nose scrunched up to match her furrowed brow as she turned away from him and replayed the events on the beach as best as she could in her mind's eye. Eko had taken out the taller, blonde man first. He had been no trouble, but when he went after the other two men, they had fought back and she had stepped in to assist him. Either one of them could have seen her at any point.

Sam? He had allowed them to take care of everything, but she knew that he had hung back at a respectful distance in case they would need him. They hadn't. He couldn't have been seen at any point. "Are you suggesting that you take my place?"

"Of course I am," Sam told her. He tried to not let himself be too annoyed when she snorted at him in amusement as he let out a frustrated huff and rubbed his eyes as a dull pain shot across his temples. "Is it really that implausible that I go down there instead of you?"

"A little," Ana Lucia shrugged sheepishly.

"Yeah, well…I'd like to think that you, of all people, are more than aware that I can defend myself and others around me if I need to," Sam seethed at her. The smile on her face faded away as her mind immediately conjured up images of Goodwin. Him as he stood over her with a knife and a confident smile before Sam had showed up and shoved a spear through his stomach. If he hadn't showed up, Goodwin would have killed her and probably reported it back to the others as an accident.

She contemplated his suggestion for a few moments and slowly nodded her consent before she motioned for Eko to join them. "You have to promise that you'll stay near the opening so we can pull you out if we have to."

Sam nodded in agreement as Eko stepped forward and gave Sam a grim look. Sam loosened out his muscles and popped his neck back and forth before he breathed deeply in and out several times. He squeezed his eyes shut, scared that he would try to defend himself is he knew the hit was coming, and almost said a silent prayer before he nodded his head tersely.

He only felt two of the blows before he collapsed onto the sand.

"Hurry up and get him into the pit," Ana Lucia loudly ordered as Eko picked up Sam's limp body and placed him over his shoulder as he walked towards the tiger pit.

"Hey, let us out of here right now!" He heard a southern voice shout from deep inside. Eko nodded over at Bernard to lift the bamboo cover and placed Sam into the pit as carefully as could while he still maintained the cover of nonchalance. He tried not to wince as Sam landed at the bottom with a tumble before he nodded for Bernard to replace the cover.

"Hey, wait. Come back!" Michael spoke up as he stepped over the new body in their prison and jumped to try to reach the bamboo. "You can't just leave us in here!"

"It's no use, Michael. They ain't coming back," Sawyer huffed as he shifted his shoulder the wrong way and cursed.

Michael stepped away from the opening and nearly tripped on the heap at his feet before he righted himself on a root hanging out of one of the dirt walls. "Who'd they throw down here?" he asked as he kept his gaze locked on the sunlight that streamed through the open branches above them.

"It's just some guy," Sawyer observed as he knelt down next to the unconscious body. He placed his fingers on the man's neck and felt a steady pulse beneath his skin right as he let out a deep and painful moan.

Sawyer stayed crouched next to him as Sam slowly opened his eyes and allowed them to adjust to the sunlight before he took inventory of the three men in the pit with him as they stared down at him.

_Ok, Sammy, time to give the performance of your life_, his brother's voice instructed him. Sam's eyes grew wide with fear as he quickly shuffled away from the three men until his back connected with the dirt at the edge of the pit. "Hey, it's ok. Calm down," Michael soothingly spoke up as he held his hands out in front of him as if Sam were a wild dog.

Sam's eyes remained filled with fear as Sawyer stood back up from his crouched position and mirrored Michael's submissive stance. "Are you alright, man?" Sam could see genuine concern in their eyes as he convinced himself to tone down his performance in order to gain their trust.

"Who the hell are you?" he queried around a painful grimace. It was good to know that he didn't have to pretend to be in mesmerizing pain, but he couldn't help but wonder what kind of a whopping Eko could give to someone that he considered an enemy. Maybe he just didn't want to know.

"We, uh…crashed on this island," Michael told him as Sam slowly stood up and worked past a dizzy spell. "We were on a plane from Sydney to Los Angeles."

"What?" Sam asked in confusion as he lowered his hand from his head.

"Forty or so of us made it out alive," Sawyer informed him.

"Was it Oceanic? Flight 815?" Sam asked, his earlier pain forgotten as hope began to swell within him.

"You were on it, too?" Sawyer asked as he narrowed his eyes at him in caution. He kept his gaze planted on his features, almost as if he were studying him.

"Were you in the back? It broke off mid-air." Michael told him. "How did you…"

"I don't know," Sam admitted as he dropped the pretense and realized that these men might have been in the same section as his brother. They might be able to lead their group to the rest of the survivors. "I got up to go to the bathroom and it all happened so fast. I must have passed out because I woke up underwater and made my way to the surface…swam to shore."

"You've been out here by yourself all this time?" Sawyer asked in disbelief as he readjusted the grip he had on his shoulder with a painful grimace.

Sam opened his mouth to inform them that there had been a mistake and that the other people with him were also survivors when his gaze was instantly drawn to the bullet wound on Sawyer's shoulder that he had seen earlier. How had that even happened?

"_When you take into consideration that he could have been planted on the beach in order to take someone else from our group," _Sam heard Ana Lucia's voice ring out clearly in his head as a means to deter him.

"_Yeah, and we all thought that Goodwin was just another regular passenger on our doomed plane,"_ Sam's own voice had argued earlier that morning to the rest of their group. What was the matter with him? Just because these men knew the details of their plane crash didn't mean they could be trusted. One of them had been shot for Christ's sake!

"Yeah, I've just been trying to find food and find my way back to anybody else that might have survived," Sam told them as he tore his eyes away from Sawyer's injury. "What happened to you?"

Sawyer glanced down at the blood stained section of his shirt and crinkled his nose at the wound. "I got shot," he admitted casually, as if it were a regular occurrence.

"We set out on a raft that we built to find rescue and bring it back to the island, but these men found us first and took my boy," Michael embellished before his voice broke on a sob. "They shot Sawyer when he put up a fight."

"Do you want me to take a look at it?" Sam asked, his act momentarily forgotten as he noticed the amount of pain that the man before him was trying to keep under wraps. "It's just that I have a pretty good track record with gunshot wounds, thanks dad."

Sawyer stiffened at his statement before a shadow stretched across the opening of their prison and then disappeared. "I say we get ready to spring this joint."

"How do you intend to do that?" Sam asked as he glanced up at the thick bamboo above them. He turned back to Sawyer and let out a shocked gasp as Sawyer pulled a gun out of his jeans and held it up discreetly.

"I figure that the next time Shaft opens up this cage, he's gonna get a surprising little howdy-doody."

Sam's eyes widened further before he shook his head in defeat. "She was right."

"What was that, partner?" Sawyer asked as he lowered his gun when the shadow fell across them again. Sam took advantage of that moment as he stepped forward , elbowed Sawyer in his wounded shoulder and then grabbed the gun that he had dropped and pointed it out at the three men in front of him. "Get me outta here!"

"What the hell is your problem?" Sawyer barked as he stood back up from where he had fallen to clutch his shoulder.

A woman appeared above them and opened up the cage so she could lower a thick rope down near the opening. Sam kept his back to her as he continued to aim the gun at the three men. "Sam, grab the rope," Ana Lucia shouted down at him.

Sawyer's eyes widened as he realized exactly why this man had seemed so familiar to him. He may not have acted exactly the same as Dean or even looked exactly the same, but there were underlying factors that he could pick out that definitely linked them together as kin. "Sam? Sam Winchester?"

Sam grazed the rope before his eyes widened at the use of his last name and he raised the gun fully back up to point at Sawyer. "How in the hell do you know my last name?"

Sawyer grinned in relief as he kept a vigilant watch on the gun that Sam had pointed at his head before he stepped towards him. "Your brother's Dean Winchester," he told him simply. "He's with our group of people."

**Author's Note: TAH-DAH! I realize that I'm very very very extremely late with posting this new story, but wow…these last few months have been hectic. Between Thanksgiving and then Christmas, I usually have a month of relaxation at work where I rarely have anything urgent come up. Not the case this year…I have been go, go, go for WEEKS. But, we're on the cusp of a new year…and it couldn't come sooner! I'd like to give mucho mucho thanks to TrappedInWonderland, The Sun Will Shine Clear, redladybug12, RedEYES-Fallen, Arlena4815162342, Deanwinchesterrocks, The Archivist613, JJxWillxProtectXYou, elmoisemo6, DavidB226Morris, Guest, evil-step-sister, LilacFree, Guest and Calen for taking the time to review the last two chapters of Winchester Mystery Crash. I hope everybody enjoys this first chapter and keeps this story on alert to find out what happens! You all ROCK THE CASBAH!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or LOST.**

_I have to fix that computer. If I don't, we're all gonna die._

Dean barely needed a fraction of a second to process those words before he felt white hot rage build from deep within his body. He didn't know if he had pissed off the wrong person in a past life or if this really was just his allotted burden to carry, but he was officially sick of it. Ever since his mother had been killed, he had surrendered himself and fought against the evil creatures from fairy tales and folk lore and had survived beautifully for his efforts. That was all supposed to be for nothing just because an out of date computer had been broken?

"I don't think so," Dean murmured. He hadn't even found Sam yet, so there was definitely no way that he was ready to just concede to some other man's irrational panic. He rushed forward, his vision tunneled, as he grabbed the man in front of him by the back of his shirt collar and slammed him against the closest wall that didn't contain any machinery.

"Dean! What the hell?!" Jack yelled in shock.

Dean ignored him as he pushed the barrel of his gun against the base of the man's skull and shoved his arm into the space between his shoulder blades to hold him still. "Now…you'll have to excuse me, but when someone says that we're all gonna die, well…I just can't help but to file that into the 'you've just been threatened' category."

From his own arm that he had used to pin the man to the wall, Dean could feel the increased beating of the man's heart as he shook his head from side to side in denial. "No…no…you don't understand," he shouted in anguish as he held his hands out flat against the wall in front of him. "I don't mean to harm you, but if I don't fix it, we WILL all die."

Dean couldn't find it in himself to take the man's pleas seriously. This wasn't some science fiction movie where a computer located on a deserted island controlled the fate and well-being of the entire world. This was real life…as much as it sucked, it was also tangible. Then again, most people would argue that his entire life's mission were delusions built around the worst characters from campfire ghost stories.

Dean heard shuffling behind him as he saw Jack appear in his peripheral vision, his gun extended out in front of him as he pointed it at the man Dean had pinned down. "Dean, do not let him go," he seethed, his voice filled with conviction.

"No kidding, Captain Obvious," Dean snarked back. He hated to admit it, but for the first time in a very long time Dean was at a loss. He honestly didn't know what his next move should or would be. Lock this guy up or just trust his reasoning and let him fix the computer?

"Please, you have to know what I'm talking about, they would have told you," the man pleaded. He stiffened and shut his mouth as Dean shoved his gun harder against the back of his head.

"Look, I'm not sure how many times I have to tell you this before it finally sinks in," Dean shouted back at him. "I do not know what the hell you're talking about!"

The man twisted his head so he could glance over at Dean from the corner of his eye as he motioned up at the numbers over the doorway that he and Jack had previously seen. "Look at the wall…do you see that?" Dean watched as the '00:97' flipped down to show '00:96' and nodded his head. "That's a timer! It's counting down!"

A timer, of course! The way the numbers ticked down to lower numbers…how was it possible that he hadn't considered that? Dean held back a tired chuckle as he came to the conclusion that he was losing his touch and let out a deep sigh instead. "Ok, I'll bite," he told him with a shrug. "What's it counting down to?"

The man glanced back up at the timer as the last number flipped down again and struggled vehemently against Dean's hold on him. "Please, I have to enter the code…I've got to push the button!"

"…and what happens if you don't?" Jack asked from his position next to Dean. The man stared up at the counter, fear written across his features as his breathing became short and labored. Dean had seen this enough times in his life to know that the man he had pinned in front of him was having an honest to God panic attack.

"Dean, I think maybe you should let him go," Locke gently spoke up from behind him for the first time since the computer had been shot.

"Shut the hell up, Locke!" Dean shouted in warning. He grabbed the man by the shoulder and spun him around so that he was face to face with him before he pushed him back against the wall. "I'm not gonna ask you again, what's gonna happen if you don't push that button?"

The man opened his mouth to answer as his eyes darted to the side of Dean and any insight he was about to give snapped shut with his mouth. He tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes as Dean watched the fear and panic that had consumed his features moments before melt away only to be replaced with a look of recognition. He followed his gaze and arched his eyebrows as he noticed Jack visibly bristle from the extra attention. "Do I know you?"

"Of course you recognize him," Dean chuckled as he glanced back at the man in front of him. "Was it when he told you how the chicken crossed the road of just one of those general blonde jokes we've all heard?"

"Dean…" Kate began as she approached them slowly with the rifle still in her hands.

"Kate?" Jack asked, his gaze not wavering from the man in front of Dean. Kate halted her approach as she let out a surprised gasp. "Yeah?"

"You got him?" Jack and Dean waited in silence as Kate let out a deep sigh and noisily raised her shotgun up towards the man before she cleared her throat in an effort to hide her anxiety. "Yeah…I got him."

"Ok, good. Dean, let him go," Jack commanded.

Dean glanced over at Jack, somewhat stupefied, while the man used Dean's momentary distraction to his advantage as he shrugged out of his loose grasp. He straightened his jumpsuit and fixed Dean with an irritated sneer before he ran full speed into the main room and picked up the smoking computer to examine it, a look of dread on his face.

It had been a long time since Dean had seen such single-minded determination and unwavering fear in a person and he couldn't help but buy into it just a little bit. It probably had something to do with the exact same kind of dedication that he saw every single day in his own father in regard to hunting a being in which they didn't even have any tangible proof to show for its existence. He shook off his thoughts and closed a mental door on them as he turned away from the scene and leaned back against the same wall he had used moments before to subdue the man. He crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Jack with a look that told him he needed to explain himself as he nodded over at Kate to continue to keep an eye on their new acquaintance.

Jack just blinked back at him casually. Dean couldn't tell if his expression was one of indifference or ignorance, but he didn't care. A man that had been stuck in a hole on their island for longer than they had occupied it clearly recognized Jack. He owed them some answers.

"Well?"

The guarded expression on Jack's face slipped away for a small moment to reveal the anguish and remorse that he had worked so hard to keep hidden. "Well what?"

A lump formed in Dean's throat as he immediately recognized the look on Jack's face and couldn't control the guilt that swelled inside of him as he realized just how hard he had been on Jack for the past several weeks. Sure, the guy had kept a few secrets and even though he had been annoyed to be out of the loop on a few of them, he knew that they had only really been necessary to ensure that their entire camp didn't descend into anarchy. It wasn't as if Jack had set up his own personal evil vendetta on the island.

Locke sucked in a deep breath and shook his head timidly as he also witnessed the pain on Jack's face. "Nothing," he muttered as he gave Jack and then Dean both a weary smile before he turned and walked away from them in order to try to assist with the computer repairs.

Dean scrutinized Locke as he walked away before he turned his focus back to Jack and held his gaze for a moment. He didn't even know what to say to him. Jack clearly knew the man that had been in this bunker, but it was also clearly a tender subject. Far be it for him to force another person to divulge their dark secrets while he insisted on keeping his under wraps.

As he realized that Dean wouldn't be pushing him for answers, Jack couldn't help the relieved and appreciative smile that crossed his features. He cleared his throat against the awkward tension that had settled into the air before he turned and walked towards the opposite direction from the computer room.

There were only so many places in the underground bunker that Jack could investigate before he'd have to rejoin their group, so Dean figured he'd be ok on his own for a little while. He let out a deep sigh as he turned and smiled at the only other person left with him in the darkened corridor. Kate didn't even spare him a glance as she kept her attention focused on the computer room, her shotgun still raised.

He followed her gaze and was perplexed as he realized that she wasn't watching the new man as he worked on the computer, but that she had her concentration focused on Locke as he tried desperately to help. "You're hanging on to that shotgun a little tightly," he observed, the sides of his mouth twisted up in a smirk.

She nodded over in his direction and inched her right hand closer to the trigger as she inhaled deeply and then blew out a burst of air in frustration. "Locke told that guy to lock me up," she informed Dean, rage clear in her voice. "When he fired that warning shot, it hit the vent that I was in."

Dean's eyes widened as he immediately pushed away from the wall and closed the gap between them in a few steps. He knelt down and examined her for anything amiss before he looked her in the eyes and held her gaze. "Are you ok? Did you get hit?"

"I'm fine," Kate assured him. "Just pissed off."

Dean stood back up fully and chuckled at Kate as she relaxed her grip on the gun and smiled up at him in kind. He patted her on the shoulder in good humor as he indicated for her to follow him into the computer area to oversee the repairs and lend a hand if needed.

"I don't think you need that, Kate," Locke gently informed her as he nodded over to the rifle in her hands.

"Screw you, Locke," Kate hissed as she kept her gun steady out in front of her.

Locke narrowed his eyes at the growing smile on Dean's face before he turned back around to the man as he searched through several items on a bookshelf. "Whatever you're looking for, maybe I can help."

"Can you fix a computer?" the man asked sarcastically. Jack appeared right next to Dean and watched the exchange as the question took Locke completely by surprise. Confusion flickered over his face before he shrugged helplessly. "Then, you can't help me, can you?"

"Hey, why don't you stow the attitude long enough to realize that we aren't the only people in our group," Dean shouted. The man stopped his searching as he stood up tall and glared over at the man that had slammed him into a wall less than five minutes prior. "Yeah, Locke may not know how to fix a computer, but we do have someone in our group that could. He fixed a transceiver when we first crashed."

"Sayid," Kate murmured in amazement as Jack nodded over at her in concession.

"Get him," Locke demanded hurriedly. "Go and get Sayid."

Dean shot Locke a withering look as he scoffed at the demand. "Would a please really hurt you that much?" Dean asked as he held up his hands at Locke.

"Are you even gonna be able to get back up that rope?" Jack finally spoke up as he glanced over at the door that he and Dean had entered through from the blown up hatch.

Shit. Dean hadn't even taken into consideration that he would need to climb back up that damn rope in order to get out of this bunker. Even after being healed up for several weeks, he knew for a fact that his shoulder wasn't yet at 100%, he just didn't want anybody else to know that. There had to be another way to get out of his place.

"Hey, Scottie," Dean asked. He waited until the man paused in his frantic search and shot him a desperate look. "You got a different way outta this place other than that freefall?"

"Down the corridor to the left," he directed Dean as he restarted his search. "Be persistent…the wheel sticks."

Dean nodded his head as he took off in the opposite direction where the man had indicated until he came across the only door at the end. An old door. "Ok, be persistent," he muttered as he placed both hands on the wheel at the center of the door and pushed it away from him with all of his strength. He grunted against the excursion as he kept at it for several moments before the wheel finally budged with a rusty groan.

Dean pulled the door open by a sliver, enough for him to slip out of the bunker to the staircase on the other side. In his haste to get as far away from the hatch as possible, he knew there were probably two or three steps he had skipped, but as he stepped into the new morning sunlight he couldn't help but let out a deep breath of relief. It felt wrong in there. He could have sworn that when he had made the trek down the hall towards the door that the old charm on his necklace had moved away from his chest towards the wall.

There was nothing he could even think of to explain it, but after almost a lifetime of having that little golden head nestled against his chest, he knew instantly when it wasn't. He patted the charm under his shirt, comfortingly, and headed up the path that led away from the hatch.

Dean stopped as he approached the familiar fork in the path and considered his options. Now that the sun was up and their "threat" had passed, would anybody still be at the caves? He definitely wouldn't have continued to stay cooped up over there when he could have just gone back to his own shelter on the beach. He had to assume that Sayid would do the same.

"Beach it is," Dean muttered as he turned to the left and jogged down the familiar path.

It was a shorter trek than the caves would have been and when Dean walked out of the jungle into the familiar settings of the beach, he couldn't help but hope that he had made the correct choice. An extra walk all the way up to the caves would have been a bitch.

Relief ignited at his core as he was met with the sight of several people on the beach jointly working together to rebuild everything that had hastily been taken down and packed up during their mandatory evacuation from the day before. After a night spent together, huddled in fear and uncertainty, it was a delightful lapse back to normalcy…well, as normal as being stranded on a deserted island could be for them.

He nodded over at Hurley as he stopped and waved at him before he threw a Frisbee to Vincent. He could see Charlie as he sat comfortably in the sand and strummed a tune on his guitar while Claire fed her son. "Ok, so where's…" he trailed off as Sayid entered his eyeline. He casually lugged a heavy crate of materials behind him before he stopped and spoke jovially with Hurley.

"SAYID!" Dean shouted as he took off in another run towards them. He could see the look of dread settle over Hurley's face as he took in the frantic sight of Dean and couldn't help but wonder if he alone was actually enough to inspire the small burst of fear from the larger man.

"Sayid, we need your help," Dean told him before he'd even slowed down to a stop.

Sayid dropped the crate he had hauled up the beach and faced him with a serious expression. "What do you need my help with?"

"The hatch," Dean told him. "We got it open and it's filled with computers and machinery. One of them broke and the guy down there isn't sure he can fix it."

Sayid opened his mouth and closed it twice before he nodded his head for Dean to lead the way. "Whoa, wait," Hurley interrupted them before they left. They both turned back around and faced him, questioning looks on their faces as Hurley shuffled from one foot to the next sheepishly. "Was there really a guy down there?"

* * *

"Let us out of here!"

Sam stood off to the shadows and glanced down at the men in the tiger pit. He couldn't believe it. If what they had told him was true, these same men had been on the plane he and Dean had been on. They had been sitting in the same section he was supposed to have been in when the crash occurred. The same section where Dean had been sitting.

"…and, he's alive," Sam muttered as he felt himself fill with relief.

"You thinking about your brother?" Ana Lucia asked as she stared down at their prisoners from right next to him.

"Yeah, I am," Sam admitted. "This whole time, I've only clung to the hope that he was still alive. You don't know how much of a relief it is to know for sure."

Ana Lucia tore her gaze away from the tiger pit to glance up at him in consternation, her features twisted up sympathetically. "Not that I want you to be perpetually emo, but I wouldn't count all my chickens yet if I were you," she admonished him gently. "For all we know, those guys could just be using that information against you."

"Ana Lucia!" Libby hissed in warning.

Sam smiled over at Libby in gratitude before he glanced back down at the tiger pit as the black man jumped up to try to reach the bamboo cover in vain. "Hey. Hey…did you hear me? I said to let us out of here!" He yelled as the wounded man tried to quiet him down.

Ana Lucia had to be wrong. The one guy had called Sam by his full name and had even been able to tell him Dean's full name. They had been in such a rush when they left Los Angeles that Sam had grabbed the first IDs he could find, Hetfield for himself and Frost for Dean. Even if someone had a manifest of their flight, they wouldn't be aware that the two of them were brothers.

"No, I think they're legit," Sam told her as she began to shake her head. "No, just wait, ok? My brother and I used aliases when we flew from Los Angeles to Sydney. That guy not only knew my actual last name, but he also knew that Dean has the same last name."

Ana Lucia glanced over at him in trepidation. He could see it clearly written on her face as it suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know anything about the man next to her. Sure, she probably felt like she had to trust him because he had made himself trustworthy in the month and half since their plane crash. Hell, Sam had been the one to save her life at the expense of another. Plus, she had seen him on her airplane.

"Why'd you use an alias?"

Sam sucked in a deep breath as he shook his head. "I can't divulge that information," he heard himself say and almost let out a snort at his own lame excuse. The old Mulder and Scully excuse, Dean would be so proud. "I'm sorry, I wish I could, but I can't."

Ana Lucia nodded over at him and barely managed to suppress her suspicion before she turned her attention back to the pit. Her mind couldn't even focus on their current situation as the man she had come to know as a friend kept crashing into the forefront of her thoughts.

Who was he? FBI? CIA? Or just some crazy guy that couldn't let the world of customs know that he was traveling across the world? She shook her head against her own thoughts. It didn't matter anyways, he had saved her life when he could have just allowed her be killed. He wasn't one of the bad guys…as if she even had the right to make that distinction.

"I think our best course of action would be to pack up and meet up with the other survivors," Sam spoke up as he noticed the men in the pit speaking in hushed tones. "They speak as if they've managed to all stay together, so maybe wherever they are isn't as dangerous as this side."

"We'll need them to lead us back to there," Ana Lucia reluctantly admitted. "From the hostility we're getting from Daniel Boone, I'm not sure that's gonna be easy."

"Can't say I blame them," Sam confessed with a shrug. "Before they even manage to get a word out, we attack them and then throw them into a pit." Libby and Eko nodded their heads at Sam's point before he sucked in a deep breath and attempted to dislodge the knot of guilt in his stomach. "It sucks that we've basically been forced to live on the defense so long, but our actions are no better than whoever's been attacking us. I don't know about you guys, but I think we should take them back to the bunker, get everybody ready to head out and then let them lead us back to their side."

The silence settled around them, only interrupted by the occasional noise from the pit, as they each considered Sam's idea. It had been far too long since any of them had felt any sort of safety or comfort and clearly the other crash survivors were doing well in their surroundings. Not only were they all still together, but they had managed to stay in one place long enough to build a raft. "I have to say that it sounds like a solid plan," Ana Lucia spoke up first. She waited as both Libby and Eko nodded their agreement before she knelt down and grabbed a length of rope from a pile they had gathered. "I still don't completely trust them, though."

"Then, keep an eye on them as best as you can," Sam advised her. "We're all pretty much gonna continue to take our cues from you anyways."

Ana Lucia chuckled as she threw the rope over to Sam and knelt down to lift the bamboo cover away from the tiger pit. She nodded over at him and waited as he dropped the rope down into the hole. "Grab the rope."

Michael stared at the length of rope in front of him as if it were his entire salvation and inched close enough towards it for his fingers to brush against the course material. "Nuh-uh, don't do it," Sawyer hissed as Michael kept his attention focused on their only escape.

"Did I forget to say please?" Ana Lucia sing-songed from above them. All three of the men in the pit shot their gazes up to her as she aimed Sawyer's gun down at them like it was nothing. "Climb the rope, now, or I shoot your friend."

Sam closed his eyes in frustration and resisted the agitated groan that threatened to crawl up his throat as he heard Libby hiss her displeasure to Ana Lucia. It wasn't as if he didn't already know that Ana Lucia was an impulsive person, but he had just finished explaining how their treatment of these men had been wrong. She had answered that assessment by pulling a gun on them…no, not just a regular gun, but their own gun.

She ignored the criticism of her group as the Korean man that they had first captured reached out and tentatively grabbed onto the rope. Sam watched as he took a moment to compose himself before he began the climb out of the pit. Once he reached the top, he grabbed onto Sam's hand and returned the smile Sam greeted him with as he planted his feet onto the solid ground.

"You next," Ana Lucia commanded as she pointed her gun at Michael.

"Don't do it," the southern man loudly commanded. "She's bluffing. The gun's only got one bullet. She ain't gonna waste it on…"

Sam choked down a laugh while Ana Lucia smirked in satisfaction as the rock she had thrown connected with his head and he crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. "Ow! Son-of-a-bitch! Ow, god!"

_This guy would definitely get along well with Dean_, Sam thought as Ana Lucia re-pointed her weapon into the pit. "Grab the rope."

Michael tore his gaze away from Sawyer as he cradled his head on the ground and nodded back up at Ana Lucia before he grabbed the rope and made the climb out of the pit. As before, Sam held his hand out to help him out as he neared the top until only Sawyer was below them.

"You want me, Hotlips…you're gonna have to come down here and get me…" Sawyer growled as Ana Lucia shared a wry look with Sam before she slammed the bamboo cover closed over his head. "…bitch."

"Well, that guy is a real piece of work," Ana Lucia observed as Sam nodded his head in agreement.

"Yeah, tell me about," Michael agreed. "The only person that actually gets along with him on our side is…" He stopped suddenly and sidled a sympathetic look in Sam's direction. Sam could only chuckle as he realized exactly what the look meant.

"Dean?"

Michael nodded his head as Sam allowed the chuckle to grow with his amusement. "It doesn't surprise me. He does seem like the kind of person that Dean would have a lifelong friendship with."

"So, you're really Dean's brother?" Michael asked. Sam smiled and nodded his head with a shrug as Michael grinned wide and held out his hand to shake. "Man, that is such good news…he has been nothing but worried about you. Even attempted to go out and find you once, but…"

Michael's face blanched and Sam was instantly on alert. "What? Did something happen to him?"

"Look, he's fine now," Michael quickly reassured him. "We got a doctor on our side and he healed him up nicely."

"What happened to him?" Sam asked, his voice barely restrained with emotion.

Michael shared a pained look with Jin before he let out a deep sigh. "He got shot in the shoulder with an arrow. Some booby trap that he tripped," he explained as the color drained from Sam's face. "He made it back to camp with the arrow still in his shoulder before he collapsed. That was almost a month ago."

Sam could feel bile rise in his throat as he pictured his brother trekking through the jungle with an arrow stuck through his shoulder. What if he had stumbled upon the people that kept abducting members of their group? What if he hadn't made it back to his camp in time. What if there hadn't been a doctor to fix him up when he got back to camp?"

"Hey man, like I said, he's fine now," Michael reassured him as he translated the dread on his face as worry for his brother. "Hell, he even helped Jin and I finish up the raft before we left."

"Raft," Jin spoke up as he mimed tying a rope. "Dean."

It didn't shock him that his brother would be back up to full strength so soon after an injury like he had imagined, but he still felt for him. He nodded his head as he forced himself to let go of the image of his brother injured and nodded over at Ana Lucia. "If you guys built a raft, why were you washing up on shore on the other side of the island?" Ana Lucia asked. "Did something happen?"

"We were ambushed by men in a boat," Michael explained. "They took my son and then blew up our raft while we were still on it."

Sam digested this information with narrowed eyes. Could it be the same people that had been attacking them? Why would they take a young boy and then leave the other people to die in the water? "Is that how the redneck got that gunshot wound?" Ana Lucia asked.

"Yeah, he tried to stop them from taking Walt and he got that for his efforts," Michael confirmed.

"Sounds like a decent guy," Sam murmured in appreciation.

"He's not," Michael assured him. "Sawyer is a conman. Like I said, only Dean really gets along with him."

Sam had to grin at that. Of course his brother would be friends with a conman, he was one himself. That was his preferred method of survival and it had worked for him his entire life. Cons and lies.

"Look, decent guy or not…we can't just leave him down there while we head out," Sam mused.

"Yeah, well…don't expect him to be a gracious guest or anything," Michael informed them. "He doesn't like to be told what to do."

"Yeah, well…I don't like to camp, but I'm still doing it," Ana Lucia murmured as she went back to the cage and lifted the bamboo cover back up. She stared down at the obstinate man for a moment and met his sneered gaze before she lowered the rope down to him. "Grab it."

"I ain't doing nothing 'til I know if my friends are okay," he shouted back with a scoff.

"So, we're friends now, huh?" Michael asked in disbelief as he appeared next to Ana Lucia above him.

"Look, you either grab the rope now, or we pull it up and forget about you," Ana Lucia told Sawyer nonchalantly. He seemed to weigh her words out in his mind as the throbbing in his shoulder intensified. He nodded up at her begrudgingly and grabbed the rope with his good arm before he began to half-climb up the wall as they pulled him up.

At the top, he scrutinized Sam's friendly smile for a few moments before he plastered a fake smile onto his face. "Well, howdy boys. Thanks for the rescue."

"Hey, everything's cool," Michael assured him as Jin nodded his head at the situation. "We had a talk and they believe we were on the plane, too."

Sawyer rolled his eyes as he allowed them to see just how much he cared about whether this group of people believed them or not. "Swell, I guess we can all sue Oceanic together."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Sam answered him. He narrowed his eyes as Sawyer kept his uninjured arm behind his back tightly and couldn't believe that after two different sets of the same horrific crash had finally reunited that this man would try something stupid. "It might be in your best interest, first, to drop whatever it is that you have tucked behind your back."

The fake smile on Sawyer's face vanished as he stared at Sam with barely contained rage in his eyes as Ana Lucia walked around him to confirm Sam's observation. "A rock. What did you plan on doing with that?"

"Nothing." Sawyer spat as he kept his eyes level on Sam's.

"Well, whether you were looking for some revenge or not, you've got exactly three seconds to drop it," she commanded.

"Ana…" Eko began as he stepped forward.

"One…two…"

"Now, hold on just a…" Sawyer began.

Ana Lucia didn't even count down to the last number before she stepped forward and elbowed Sawyer hard enough across his face for him to drop back down onto the ground. Sam immediately sprang forward and assisted Eko as they both restrained Jin. He turned back around as Ana Lucia stepped on Sawyer's wounded shoulder and stared down at him.

"Ana Lucia, stop," Libby pleaded as Sawyer's face twisted up in pain.

"Ow," Sawyer groaned before he swallowed down the scorching ache in his shoulder and looked up at Ana Lucia in disdain as she ignored the shock of the people around her. "You didn't say three." Sawyer smiled up at her in condescension as she stomped down harder on his shoulder.

"ANA LUCIA!" Sam shouted. She stayed still for several moments and stared down at the sarcastic man below her foot as she tried to even out her breathing. It wasn't until she glanced back at Sam from over her shoulder that she could see on his features that she had crossed a line. "That's enough!"

"Listen to Fabio, sweetcheeks," Sawyer snarked as she turned back around and pressed harder on his shoulder as he winced against the pain.

"Shut up," Ana Lucia hissed down at him. "When I tell you to do something, you do it. I say move, you move…I say stop, you stop…I say jump, what do you say?

"You first," Sawyer snarked without missing a beat.

Sam saw the rage grow on Ana Lucia's face and rushed forward to pull her off of Sawyer as she lifted her foot to stomp again. He barely got to her in time and pulled her a few steps away so that he could crouch down and look her straight in the eye. The complete lack of emotion behind her eyes made the hair on Sam's arms stand on edge and he couldn't help but wonder if the stress of the last month and a half had finally caught up with her.

She could see the fear and concern in his face and quickly brushed him off of her. She knelt down next to Sawyer and pointed her finger straight at him. "If you don't like the rules, I toss your ass back in the pit right now, you understand?"

Sawyer grimaced against the renewed pain in his shoulder as he struggled to sit up from the ground. "Yeah, sure. I understand." He very slowly got to his knees and grunted as he moved to stand up completely, his effort to hide the amount of pain he was in failed as he wobbled on his feet and had to catch himself before he fell back over.

"It's getting dark," Ana Lucia observed. "We're moving out."

"Moving out where?" Sawyer asked as he rested most of his weight against a thick tree.

"What did I just tell you?" Ana Lucia asked incredulously.

"Sorry, forgot," Sawyer brushed her off as he cradled his injured arm against his chest tenderly. "Oh, just one more thing, though," Sawyer announced as he shot a scathing look at Ana Lucia. "If you hit me again, I'll kill you."

Ana Lucia smiled over at him in disbelief and he matched it with a serious smile of his own. She shook her head as she stepped away from him and walked to the head of their group. "This way."

Jin tore away from Eko and Sam as Michael walked behind him so that they could both check on Sawyer. He brushed them off as he stood back up and tried to catch his balance as Sam approached them, a concerned look on his face. "Are you gonna be ok?"

Sawyer scrutinized the man in front of him for several moments. He could see the slight physical resemblance to Dean, but as far as he was concerned, there was nothing else that could link them as brothers. "Just so you know, if your brother had been here when that broad decided to go to town on my shoulder, she wouldn't have a head anymore," Sawyer growled at him. "As far as I'm concerned, you two are night and day."

* * *

"Hey you guys, I found Sayid and…" Dean stopped short as he reentered the hatch and came face to face with Locke's red and puffy eyes. He cocked his head in silent contemplation and held back the chuckle that worked its way up his throat. "Dude, are you crying?"

"Dean, thank god you're back," Kate shouted from the other end of the hatch. He turned to face her as she rushed across the gap that separated them and flew into his arms, clinging to his shirt as he felt her tremble against his chest. Dean recovered from his shock quick enough to wrap his arms around her comfortingly and pat her back in a soothing manner.

"Whoa, whoa…what's going on?" he asked. She trembled again as he peeled her off of him and held her out at arm's length so he could look her square in the face.

"It's Jack," she told him. "Desmond left and Jack followed after him."

"Desmond's the guy that we found down here?" Dean asked. "That's his name?"

Kate nodded quickly as she wiped away at the tear tracks on her face. "Yeah, he just bailed," she explained as Sayid and Hurley entered the room, awe etched on their faces as their eyes widened into identical expressions of shock.

"Dude…"

"What is this place?" Sayid asked in amazement.

"Locke, do you know where Jack went?" Dean asked as he ignored Sayid's question.

"He just left," Locke told him with a shrug before he stepped around him and guided Sayid towards the broken computer. "I need your help."

Dean rolled his eyes at Locke's single-mindedness and turned back around to face Kate. "Ok, do you have any idea where Jack went? Maybe Desmond said something before he left?" Dean asked as he glanced up at the timer above the door.

'24.00'

"I'm not sure, he just took off after Desmond," she told him, the worried expression on her face growing with each passing second. Dean let out a deep sigh as he glanced back up at the clock in time for it to tick down by another minute. This was such typical Jack. Would it really kill him to stop for a few moments and think his actions through before he jumped into any situation headfirst?

"Look, I'll go after him," Dean announced ruefully. "With any luck, I'll be able to find one of their trails and I won't be gone that long."

"I need to find the breaker box," Sayid announced from behind them.

"No, I'll go," Kate disagreed as she shook her head up at Dean. "I have just as much of a chance at finding their trail as you do."

"Yeah, that's true," Dean agreed. "But, I happen to have a cassette player in my car back home and I can barely use the text feature in my cell phone."

Kate scrunched up her face at him in confusion. "I don't understand…"

"If Sayid needs any help getting that end of the world computer fixed, I'm the last person that can lend a capable hand," Dean admitted to her. "But, I can find the trail as well as you can and hopefully bring both of them back before we're all supposed to die."

Kate glanced back over at Sayid, Locke and Hurley as they all continued to work and nodded her head before he turned to leave. "Dean, wait." She waited until he turned back around and fixed her with a hurried look before she inhaled deeply and blew it back out. "Before they left, Desmond seemed to just give up on fixing the computer. What happens if we can't get it fixed?"

Dean stared over at her before he shook his head around a shrug. "I'm kinda wondering about that myself."

* * *

It had only been about twelve minutes since Dean had left the hatch before he found anything worth following. Footprints…and they were fresh. Two different sets headed away from their beach. "Where the hell is he leading us?"

If Desmond had been down in that hatch for so long, why would he even risk trekking an area unknown to him?

"Unless he knows what he's doing," Dean murmured in realization. He crouched down low and carefully followed the footprints across the jungle. He was annoyed that he even had to go out and find Jack, but he couldn't help but be amused that out of two men, neither had thought to cover their tracks. "Maybe Jack wants to be found," he whispered to himself.

"STOP!" Jack yelled out. Dean could faintly hear Jack's voice, but it sounded more like the tall trees and growth had muffled it rather than distance. They were close.

Dean snapped back up to his full height and smiled victoriously as he ran towards the noise. He entered a clearing behind Jack and watched as he trained his gun on Desmond in front of him. "Listen carefully. If by some miracle you manage to get the computer working again you've got to enter the code: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, hit execute, ok? Again: 4, 8, 15…"

"Shut up!" Jack yelled.

"We don't need the code since you're coming back with us," Dean added as he joined Jack at his side and pulled out his own gun.

"Sorry, that isn't happening," Desmond told him. "You have the choice to let me go or shoot me. Either way, I'm free now."

"You've always been free!" Jack shouted incredulously. "Why would you even do this to begin with? Some man takes you down there, shows you a movie, and you push a button on…on faith alone?" He lowered his gun as he shook his head in disbelief. "Nothing is going to happen if we don't push that button!"

"In about fifteen minutes you're either going to be very right, or very wrong, brother," Desmond calmly informed him. "Now, like I said, if you want to shoot me, shoot me! But I'm not…"

"Why are you even running?" Jack asked. "You don't even know what you're running from…"

"I do remember you, you know," Desmond interrupted him. Dean shot Jack a curious look as Jack narrowed his eyes. "Running…I met you…in Los Angeles. I was training, yeah? You twisted your ankle..."

"Stop," Jack commanded.

"You're a doctor, right?" Desmond asked. "There was this girl…you were worried…you said…you said you failed her. That was you."

"It doesn't matter," Jack told him as he shook his head against the painful memory.

"Was she okay? The girl?" Desmond asked.

"It doesn't matter," Jack repeated, his tone more forceful than before.

"What happened to her?" Desmond asked.

"I said that it doesn't matter," Jack reiterated.

"Hey man, just stop it," Dean seethed as he identified the pain written across Jack's face. "He clearly doesn't want to talk about this."

"I don't understand," Desmond countered. "How can you even say that it doesn't matter?"

Jack's face crumpled as he lowered his gun and held his hands up to his face. "That girl? I married her!"

Dean hadn't seen Jack break down yet. They had been through a plane crash, murder and death for a month and half and Jack had consistently maintained his composure the entire time. "Right. And you're…you're not married to her anymore, then?"

Jack continued to cry as Desmond picked up his pack and gave them both a sad smile. "Wait, they need you to fix the computer," Dean spoke up.

"I'm done with that damn button, brother," Desmond told him simply before he turned a sympathetic look to Jack. "See you in another life, yeah?"

Dean had no choice but to lower his own gun as he watched Desmond run as fast he could away from them. He couldn't shoot him just because Desmond wanted to escape his crappy lot in life anymore than he could have shot his own brother when he left for college. He turned around to face Jack and watched as he tried to push his emotions back behind the surface unsuccessfully. "Hey, are you gonna be ok?"

Jack sucked in a deep breath as he watched Desmond until he had completely disappeared into the brush before he returned Dean's attention. "Yeah, I'm fine," Jack told him as he wiped away at the lingering tears on his cheeks.

"He gave you the code, right?" Dean asked.

"Yeah, we should head back," Jack told him. "The counter's probably almost down to zero."

The entire jog back to the hatch was spent in silence as Dean contemplated the man next to him. Jack had annoyed him for most of their time on the island with his constant need for secrets. Sure, Jack had pretty much been forced to play leader after their crash and then been questioned at every turn, including by himself, but did that mean he had to keep himself completely closed off? He was married? Or maybe he wasn't anymore? Dean suddenly realized that he barely knew anything about Jack, Kate, Sawyer…anybody on the island. He only really knew enough random tidbits about a few of the survivors to get him by.

_It's not like it matters, _Dean thought. _Would you actually divulge anything about yourself to any of them?_ Dean had to admit that he wouldn't. A plane crash did not make them family, it only made them people in the same situation, trying to survive.

A knot of dread worked its way into Dean's stomach and grew with each new step they took towards the hatch. The closer they got to the door of the bunker, the more coherently Dean could hear the whining noise as it broke through his thoughts.

"You hear that too, right?" Jack asked. "I'm not having a stroke or anything?"

"Well, considering you're the doctor here…" Dean muttered as they reentered the hatch just below a blaring alarm. "That definitely doesn't sound good."

"Agreed," Jack told him as they both ran further down the hallway towards the main computer room.

"Twenty three," Locke stated as they rounded a corner.

"What is this thing?" Hurley asked, panic in his voice. "You don't even know what it does! I mean we need..."

"Thirty two," Locke spoke up as he ignored Hurley.

Dean came to a stop next to Hurley as he visibly relaxed and backed away from the computer. "You know what? Forget it…go ahead and do your thing."

"It's not thirty two," Jack spoke up as the blood drained from Hurley's face once again. "It's forty two. Desmond just told me. The last number's forty two."

"You're sure?" Locke asked.

"Yeah, I'm sure," Jack confirmed.

Locke nodded and entered in the last number. His fingers hovered over the execute button as he glanced back up at Jack, a glint in his eye. "You do it, Jack."

"What?"

"You have to do it," Locke spoke up as he backed away from the computer.

Jack bit back a sardonic smile as he shook his head. "You do it yourself, John."

"No, you saw the film, Jack," Locke reminded him. "This is a two person job, at least."

"It's a two person job so somebody can sleep more than 108 minutes a time," Dean argued as the alarm in the bunker got louder and louder with each number that counted down.

"Dean's theory is most likely correct," Sayid agreed.

"It doesn't matter anyways," Jack spoke up. "I'm not pushing that button. It's not real."

"If it's not real, then what are you doing here, Jack?" Locke questioned. "Why did you come back?"

"I came back because I accept that you believe in this crap and want to push this button," Jack answered him calmly. "I provided you with the correct numbers to do that, but I'm not gonna do it for you. I don't believe in it."

"Why do you find it so hard to believe?!"

"Why do you find it so easy?!" Jack yelled back.

"It's never been easy!" Locke countered.

Dean glanced up at the counter as it reached '01:04' and shook his head as another alarm blared with the one that had already started to work on his last nerve. "Look, rather than argue about whether it opens a hole into Wonderland or not, can we all just agree that it should be pushed just to turn that noise off?"

"Maybe you should just do it," Kate added in as Jack shook his head.

"No. It's a button…nothing more," Jack held his ground.

"I can't do this alone, Jack," Locke pleaded. "I don't want to. It's a leap of faith, Jack…"

Dean audibly scoffed as he pushed past the two of them and pressed the execute button on the keyboard. He watched as the timer above the doorway reset to 108.00 and rubbed his temples to get the residual sounds from the alarm out of his head.

"Thank you, Dean. I appreciate your faith," Locke spoke up.

Dean let out a sardonic chuckle as he spun around and leaned against the desk behind him, casually. "Here's the thing, Locke…this leap of faith you keep talking about? It has to be reached by your own free will, not because the devil on your shoulder is pressuring you into it."

"I wasn't trying to…" Locke began.

"Like hell you weren't," Dean spat at him. "Let's get something straight, if anybody chooses to help you out and assist you with pushing that button, they'll do it because they've chosen to for their own reasons. There isn't anybody on this island that has the right to force somebody to do something they don't believe in just because you happen to have a god complex."

Dean watched Locke as his accusations settled around him and couldn't help his disgust that Locke didn't even have the grace to look ashamed. He looked amused. "Look, since you're so adamant to play into this end of the world scenario, you can take the first shift."

Locke opened his mouth to respond before he closed it with a nod and sank into the seat in front of the repaired computer. Dean smiled over at Kate and patted Jack on the shoulder as he moved to exit the hatch and head back to the beach. Just as he passed the doorway, he glanced up at the timer and watched as the numbers flipped down to '107.00.'

**Author's Note: Well, that didn't get updated as quickly as I would have liked. I wish I could say that this will get better, but my company just let go of a member of our team and we're being expected to pick up the slack. The good news is that this next chapter is halfway written since it was originally part of this chapter. So…I'm gonna try to get it posted in the next two weeks-ish. Big shout out and thanks go to elmoisemo6, RedEYES-Fallen, The Archivist613, The Sun Will Shine Clear, redladybug12, TrappedInWonderland, Guest, Anonymous, Joanna Hennet, dgj212, Endgame65, randomvisits, WeasleysRangaWife, Slantz, idowgetit, SparkleNicole, Arlena4815162342 and Guest. You guys keep me going and I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or LOST.**

"This entire situation is ten different shades of screwed up," Sawyer muttered as he took a timid seat in between Michael and Jin. He blinked several times to allow his eyes to adjust, slightly, to the dim light that surrounded them before he settled himself down with a weary sigh and cradled his wounded shoulder. "Funny thing is, that's me admitting to that based on the situation that we were already neck deep in." He punctuated his remark with a bitter laugh as his head fell back against the wall behind him.

"What are you even talking about, man?" Michael asked, his voice filled with exhausted aggravation.

"What am I talking about?" Sawyer repeated incredulously. "This! I'm talking about all of this." He sat up with a wince and gestured grandly to the room that they had been led into before he nodded his head pointedly at the group of people that had led them down into it.

Michael and Jin turned their attention to the direction Sawyer had indicated and watched as a hushed conversation took place on the other side of the room. Every few moments, one of the people from the tail section would pull away from the others to peer quizzically at the three new men before they rejoined the discussion with their group. Well, all of them except Dean's supposed brother and an older gentlemen that Sam had pulled to the side so they could have a separate conversation.

"Let's all just forget about the fact that these people found a damn bomb shelter on their side of the 'deserted island,'" Sawyer sneered as he raised his hands into sarcastic air quotations.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't a bomb shelter," Michael rebuked him.

Sawyer sat back against the wall and allowed a bitter smirk to light up his face. "Oh good…semantics," he remarked with a fake chuckle to match his smirk. "That's just perfect…this is the perfect time to split hairs."

"Get to the point, Sawyer," Michael groaned.

"The point is that they had twenty two people when they started out," Sawyer hissed vehemently. "Twenty two! These people are down by more than half."

"What do you want me to say?" Michael asked in irritation. "They don't trust any of us yet, why would they feel the need to give us a straight answer?"

"Well, you seemed to just make pals with them after they knocked us out and threw us down into that pit," Sawyer accused.

"Yeah, well, they're from our crash," Michael shot back. "Maybe they'd trust us a little more if you didn't fight them at every turn."

"Did you not hear the part about us getting knocked out and thrown into a pit?" Sawyer seethed.

"You said it yourself that they're down by more than half," Michael reiterated. "That happened somehow. How were they supposed to know that we weren't there to harm them?"

"Others," Jin stuttered out. Sawyer and Michael turned to look over at him as he nodded his head over at the tail section survivors. "Ethan."

"He's right," Michael admitted. "If somebody managed to get inside our camp and attack us, who's to say that it didn't happen to them also?"

Sam could hear Sawyer and Michael as they whispered back and forth behind him and he couldn't blame them one bit for being mistrustful of the people in his group. Ever since he had met Ana Lucia, he had learned that she had the tendency to be overzealous in most of her endeavors. It's not that Sam blamed her completely. Ever since that first attack on them had happened to now, Ana Lucia had gotten progressively defensive of the remaining people in their group. From what he had observed, she acted as if she were paying penance for something and shouldered the burden of keeping everybody safe. With that burden came the associated guilt when someone got hurt or disappeared.

While he couldn't hear much of the actual conversation between Michael and Sawyer, he had very clearly heard the only contribution Jin had made during their hushed discussion. Two words that he had practically shouted out in urgency. "Others" and "Ethan."

"Bernard, I'm telling you, they're from our plane," Sam told him in hushed excitement. "Sawyer, the blonde one, told me that my brother's alive, maybe they have some information about your wife."

Bernard glanced around Sam with wide eyes at the trio as they continued to whisper back and forth between each other. He barely managed to hold back the sob in his throat as he tentatively stepped towards them with Sam close on his heels. Sam couldn't help but send out a silent prayer that Bernard's wife was alright as they both stopped in front of the group and waited patiently for them to turn their attention up to them.

"Um, excuse me. H…hi," Bernard stammered out, before he cleared his throat. "Um…b…back where you guys, uh, where you came from…" he stopped as he glanced back at Sam and received an encouraging nod before he knelt down in front of them. "Is there a woman named Rose there?"

Sam watched as Jin's eyes widened in recognition of the name and glanced over to Sawyer as he kept his expression neutral. "Black chick in her 50's?"

Bernard nodded his head as Michael glanced back at Sawyer and then faced Bernard again. "Is she…is she okay?"

"Yeah, man," Michael told him as he nodded his head. "She's okay."

The world seemed to slow to a stop as a relieved look flashed across Bernard's face and he visibly sagged with a smile. "Oh," he managed to breath out before a sob caught in his throat. "Thank you…"

"Michael," Michael filled in for him as Sam stepped forward and patted Bernard on the shoulder with a smile. "I'm Michael."

"Thank you, Michael," Bernard told him around a shaky breath. "I'm…I'm Bernard."

Sawyer's eyes widened at the name at the same moment that Jin's smile grew. "Rose…she uh…she was adamant that you were ok," Sawyer commented in awe from his same position. He recovered enough to look impassive as he smiled over at the older man. "She said that she could just feel it."

Bernard laughed deeply and nodded his head as a few tears slipped down his cheeks. "Just so you know," Michael added and stopped Sam in his tracks as he moved to leave them. "Dean said the same thing about you."

* * *

With each minute that passed him by, Dean was definitely becoming increasingly more frustrated. He could feel it in his bones and in the way his blood seemed to boil at the tiniest incident. He also knew why he was on such a short fuse, as loathe as he was to admit it to himself…Sammy.

He was more than aware of the image that Sam had in his head of Dean's time as a hunter while Sam had been in school. He knew that Sam saw Dean as the picture of the good soldier that followed the commands of the more experienced soldier and that nothing in those years had ever gone amiss. Ever since Sam had rejoined him months prior, Dean had allowed that mental picture to remain in Sam's head…far be it for him to reveal what those years without him had actually been like for himself and their dad.

It wasn't to say that the entire time had been terrible, but Dean could admit that he had spent a good amount of time resenting their father for the way he had spoken to Sam when he made the decision to leave. They had argued a few times and during one team hunt, Dean had let his resentment get the better of him and had been gravely injured as the result. Well, injured enough that he hadn't been able to sneak out of the hospital for a good two weeks and had then been bedridden for another two weeks after that. Even after he had completely healed from his ordeal and he and John had resumed hunting, Dean had only been able to find one way to calm himself down.

It was simple, actually. Get into his beloved Impala, crank up some classic rock and make the drive to Stanford to check in on his brother…from a distance. He had proudly been present to witness the moment when Sam had first met Jessica. He had sat for hours at the other end of the campus bar when Sam and all of his new friends had celebrated Sam making the Dean's list…each time he made it. Safely in the shadows, behind a tree or tucked close to his car's dashboard, Dean had diligently observed his brother's attempt at a normal life.

It had turned into his own personal reset button against the burdens that always stacked up on his shoulders. He had never gone more than two or three weeks without checking in on his brother…more for his own sake than anything.

Now?

"Almost seven weeks," Dean muttered around the knot in his throat.

"Hey," Dean stopped at the top of the stairs that lead out of the hatch and let out a deep sigh. He covered up his aggravation and turned back around to Jack's smiling face as he climbed up the stairs towards him. "I didn't see you down there earlier," Jack announced as he stopped a few steps away from him.

"Yeah, I just brought a few of the extra parts that we salvaged from the plane for Sayid to use on the computer," Dean admitted as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder. "I'm actually headed back to the beach right now."

"You've been spending all of your time there since we opened this hatch up," Jack observed. "Is everything ok?"

"Everything's fine," Dean told him behind clenched teeth. "Look, forgive me if I don't really trust a hatch located in the middle of nowhere that leads to a doomsday room where a code and a button saves the world every 108 minutes," he admitted hollowly with a shrug.

Dean backed up two more steps as Jack opened his mouth to respond. "Oh, no, man…it's cool for you guys. Trust me…I'm really looking forward to this not crashing and burning around everybody."

"What's your problem?" Jack asked as he shook his head. "What's so wrong with us taking something good from this horrible situation and using it to our advantage?"

Dean stared down at Jack in dumbfounded shock before he choked back a chuckle. "There's nothing wrong with that. Kind of like if you trip and skin your knee, but find a lollipop on the sidewalk…you're basically getting something good out of something bad, also, right?"

"Dean, I don't think you…"

"Still, when you put that sucker into your mouth and taste the dirt and foot traffic mixed in with the sugar, maybe then you'll think that it would have been a better idea to just stand up, dust yourself off and walk away," he finished in a condescending tone. Dean smiled wide before he spun back around and exited the stairwell into the sunlight.

"Such a jackass," Dean muttered as he stalked away from the hatch through the brush and foliage of the jungle on his way back to the beach.

"Dean!"

Dean stopped with a groan and slowly spun back around. He could feel that the irritation inside of himself had spiked and that it had to be clearly etched across his features…until Shannon appeared on the path before him, her eyes filled with panic. "Dean, thank god." She ran towards him at full speed and gripped his arms tightly when she stopped right in front of him.

"Whoa whoa…what's wrong," Dean asked as he placed a hand on each of her shoulders and crouched down so he could look her square in the eyes.

"Dean, I've been looking all over for you," Shannon stuttered. "Sun and Claire told me not to tell anyone, but I knew you'd know what to do. You've done so much to help since we crashed, like with Boone, that I just…"

"Ok, Shannon?" Dean interrupted her as she began to get hysterical. "You've got to calm down, you're getting a bit frantic." He waited as Shannon took in a few shaky breaths before she nodded her head up at him vigorously. "Now, what's going on? Why were you looking for me?"

She opened her mouth and then closed it quickly as her eyes darted around the path that they were standing on. Dean identified the fresh paranoia as it flashed across her face for a moment before he straightened back up and also glanced around at the area that they were in. "Not here."

"What?"

"I said not here," she repeated as she gave the path one more cursory glance. "Follow me," she demanded as she grabbed onto the sleeve of his over-shirt and pulled him along behind her.

"Slow it down, Speed Racer" Dean requested as he stumbled a bit before he caught his rhythm from behind her. "What in the hell is so important?"

Shannon didn't even spare him a glance as she continued to pull him briskly down several paths with Dean's height putting him at a disadvantage to the thick branches Shannon was easily able to dodge. A few moments after he admitted to himself that he no longer had any clue where Shannon was leading him, she stopped so abruptly in front of him that he ran straight into her and had to steady them both before they fell to the ground in a heap.

Dean regained his footing and glanced up at the clearing Shannon had led him to. The first thing he noticed were the grim faces of Sun and Claire as they both stared back at himself and Shannon. The second thing he noticed was the wine bottle Sun had clutched against her chest like a lifeline. The empty wine bottle.

"Is that…"

"It's the messages we sent with the raft," Claire confirmed as she patted her squirming son on the back reassuringly. "I found it in the water when I was walking on the beach and I told Shannon about it. We didn't know what to do, so since Jin left on the raft, we included Sun."

Dean listened to the chain of shared information these women had created that had the potential to create chaos in their group. He wondered if frogs would fall from the sky if he admitted to himself that Jack had a point when he kept certain information selective. "Have you told anybody else about this?"

"No, it's only us four that know," Shannon confirmed.

"Ok…well, why'd you guys feel the need to include me in on this?" Dean asked incredulously. "Wouldn't Jack have been a better option?"

"You've seen what happens to Jack when he gets involved in a possible crisis," Claire pointedly reminded him. Dean immediately recounted the situation with Ethan and when Claire had been abducted. She was right. "Plus, with how busy he's been at the hatch, you seemed like the best bet to handle this. Besides, while Sun has her husband on the raft, you're the person that has a friend on it."

"Wait…which friend do I have on the raft?"

Shannon scoffed audibly with an eye roll as she shook her head incredulously. "I have an idea…why don't we skip the macho denial act and just remind you that we've all watched you and Sawyer become friends since the crash."

Dean turned to face Shannon and had to bite down the sarcastic 'welcome back' on the tip of his tongue as he schooled his features and shrugged at her point instead. He'd finally made strides with Shannon after weeks of being at each other's throats, far be it for him to throw away that effort just because he was in a constant bad mood.

With a resigned sigh, he stepped forward and held his hand out for the bottle and just barely caught the panic that crossed Sun's features as she clutched the glass tighter against her chest before she loosened her grip and handed it over to him resignedly. Dean smiled reassuringly at her and held the bottle up to the light in order for him to inspect the contents. Yep, there they were…little pieces of paper that he would bet contained every message to loved ones off of the island. "There's no way they would have just left this behind," he murmured distractedly.

Shannon slapped him upside his head hard enough for him to tear his attention away from the bottle and glanced up in time to see the devastation appear across Sun's face as tears welled up in her eyes. "Oh, no…that's not what I meant…"

"What else could you have meant?" Sun questioned. "Something's happened to them. Something horrible."

"Sun, they're fine," Dean told her. "For all we know they just hit some rough waves and didn't notice that the bottle fell from the raft."

Sun reached forward and snatched the bottle back from him and once again clutched it to her chest like a security blanket. Dean glanced back and forth between the three women in the clearing and silently cursed himself as he saw the same thing reflected on their faces that he could feel on his. He was so full of shit.

* * *

"Ana, it's got to be over an hour," Cindy whispered over to her. "Shouldn't we start moving again?"

Sam startled as he looked up from his own musings and realized that the only light in the clearing where they had stopped was coming from the torches they had all rigged hours before. _Geez, how long have I been in my own head?_

He already knew the answer to that question without even having to think about it. Ever since the two of their groups had begun this trek to get away from their side of the island and rejoin the other survivors, they had been assaulted with nothing but bad luck. Mind you, nobody had been abducted yet, but that didn't mean they were still at full capacity.

Sam bit back a bitter laugh as he allowed the familiar feeling of envy for his brother to fill him. Sure, he had very recently found out that Dean had been shot in the shoulder with an arrow which he had been forced to leave in place as he walked back to his camp with it still stuck in him. All that just so that he could find Sam. Truthfully, that still sounded like paradise compared to Sam's own current experience to find his brother.

The only reason they were even stopped in this clearing was because Michael had fled from them to go and find his son. Not that Sam could rightfully blame him, he knew as well as anybody that family was family. But still, Michael's absence had upset Jin enough for him to have insisted that they take the time to find Michael. In such an unfamiliar part of the island, they all knew that he wouldn't have managed very far on his own, which was why Eko had offered to go with him.

Sam should have probably taken the reins to lead their group through the jungle, but his mind was too cluttered with the information he had gathered from the last few days to concentrate on directions. With Eko gone and Sam indisposed, Ana Lucia had taken it upon herself to lead them away. She'd made it about a half a mile before she gave the order for everybody to stop and rest…over an hour and a half ago.

Sam glanced back over at Ana Lucia as she breathed in deeply and released it through her nose, the tension in her face speaking to the volumes that she never would. She had gotten them lost and with the sun gone, she was panicked to move again. "Let them rest a little while longer," she murmured.

"Yeah, but what if they come?" Cindy asked.

Sam opened his mouth to defend Ana Lucia at the same moment that Sawyer decided to lazily break his silence. "She's lost." Sam snapped his mouth shut with a wince as he cast a sidelong look at Ana Lucia. She sucked in an indignant breath and bestowed Sawyer with a murderous glare. "I'm not lost."

"Then tell me, Ponce de Leon, which way are we supposed to go?"

The frustration seemed to melt away from Ana Lucia's features as vulnerability took its place. She glanced around the clearing in defeat before she cleared her throat determinedly and fixed Sawyer with a pointed look. "Alright then, genius, where would you go?"

"Oh no, I'm not the one leading this group," Sawyer told her. "I'm with you completely on this one, sit tight and wait for Mr. Eko to show up and guide us. Especially since you've done nothing but get us lost."

"Alright, that's enough," Sam muttered. "We're on an island, so there's not much more lost we can get than that. Even so, you don't have to treat people like that."

"Not much more lost? Look around you, Jerry Van Dyke," Sawyer snorted. "Despite our general location, we are still more lost than we were."

Sam opened his mouth to respond before he shut it with a furrowed eyebrow. "Did you just call me Jerry Van Dyke?"

"Yeah, you know…" Sawyer began as he leaned towards Sam conspiratorially. "The less popular brother?"

Sam rolled his eyes at another person that had been charmed with his brother and left to resent him. "Look, it doesn't even matter if we're lost," Ana Lucia spoke up. "If your friend hadn't run off, Eko would still be here now, wouldn't he? You sure didn't have any problem leaving him behind, though, huh?

The smirk melted away from Sawyer's face as he snapped a deadly glare at Ana Lucia. "Look, let's get something straight. Mike only cares about himself and his kid," he explained to her. "Neither's got squat to do with me."

"Glad to know that you feel that way."

Sawyer's shocked gaze snapped up to Michael as he set his jaw and walked by him in a huff. "I didn't expect to see you guys again." Guilt crossed over Sawyer's features as Jin came into the clearing and knelt down next to him in concern. He spoke quickly to him in Korean as he reached towards his wound to check it.

"Yeah, yeah, Chewie, I know," Sawyer huffed as he adjusted his arm away from Jin with a wince. "My arm's about to fall off."

Sam nodded over to Eko as he appeared in the clearing and ran to meet him with Ana Lucia. "Hey, I can't believe you two actually managed to find him," Sam congratulated Eko as he patted him on the arm. His smile vanished at the grim look on his face.

"Yeah well, if anyone could…" Ana Lucia added with a smile before she noticed the look on Eko's face. "You okay?"

"Yes, but we have to go," Eko informed them in a low voice. "I saw them."

"What?" Cindy broke in as she stood up from her spot. "How many were there?"

"What do you mean, you saw them?" Bernard added incredulously.

"Did you see the kids?" Libby asked.

"Libby," Ana Lucia warned her as Sam's features twisted up pensively. They hadn't had much contact with the natives since he had killed Goodwin, why had they shown up now? Why had they allowed themselves to be seen? He glanced back over at Michael and couldn't help but wonder if it had anything to do with his missing son.

"I meant what I said," Eko reiterated. "We need to go. Now."

"Alright," Ana Lucia agreed. "We're moving out. Now."

"Hang on just a second," Sawyer muttered as he struggled to stand up without jostling his shoulder too much. He seethed as everybody but Jin and Michael ignored him. "Hey!"

"What?" Ana Lucia snapped as she continued to gather her items up so they could leave the clearing.

"We can't just go now. Its night."

"Scared of the dark?" Ana Lucia taunted.

"Better than being scared of ghosts," he threw back at her.

Ana's features tightened up again as she spun around and readied herself to follow Eko out of the clearing. "You know, she'd be more willing to listen to you if you didn't antagonize her so much."

"I don't give a shit if I'm antagonizing her too much," Sawyer snapped back at Sam. "If it's too hot in the kitchen, stay the hell out."

"You're such a jerk," Sam muttered as he brushed past him to follow Ana Lucia.

"Least I ain't a bitch," Sawyer snapped back.

* * *

The early daylight sunrays lit the way for the tail section survivors as they entered a field of tall grass outside of the tall trees. "How much further to their camp?" Ana Lucia asked Eko as he glanced around at their surroundings.

"A day…maybe more, maybe less," he estimated.

"Thanks for being so specific," Ana Lucia retorted sourly.

Sam had opted to stay towards the back of the group so he could watch Sawyer in case his condition deteriorated. So far, his slow walk had downgraded to a shuffle and his breathing had become more labored. He could clearly see how much pain the man was in and how much this trip was taking out of him, but he simply refused to acknowledge it. No wonder he got along with Dean…his brother would have played the exact same role.

Sam jumped as Sawyer stumbled across some thicker brush and fell to one knee with a groan. "Damn it!" He rushed forward with Libby to help him back to his feet as Libby fingered the torn cloth of his shirt to get a better look at his injury. "Okay…okay," Sawyer hissed in pain as he pulled his shoulder away from her. "I'm fine."

"You're definitely not fine, man," Sam told him as Libby glanced at the parts of the wound she could see in apprehension.

"Do you want to let me just take a quick look at your shoulder?" She asked timidly as he stubbornly relaxed and allowed her to move his shirt aside with a wince.

"What, are you a doctor?" Sawyer asked sarcastically.

"A clinical psychologist," she told him with a smirk.

"You're a shrink?" He deduced with a smirk of his own. "Well, maybe you ought to talk to my shoulder."

"Hey, she still went to medical school," Sam countered as Sawyer narrowed his eyes at him. "You do know my brother, right?" Sam waited as Sawyer reluctantly nodded his head before he continued. "We were raised the same way, he and I. Just try to let us help you, ok?"

"How'd you get shot, anyway?" Libby asked carefully.

"With a gun," Sawyer whispered sarcastically.

"He got shot when they took my kid," Michael announced from behind Sawyer. Sam glanced up at Michael appreciatively as Sawyer hung his head in shame. What was wrong with him? Did he really not like to admit that he was willing to help out anybody but himself?

"It's bad, right?" Sawyer whispered low.

Libby glanced back down at his wound and shared a look with Sam before she shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, it's bad." Sawyer let out a defeated sigh as Libby smiled back at him playfully. "But it's not real bad," she clarified casually, as if he only had a paper cut to worry about instead of a hole in his shoulder. "C'mon, you're going to be okay. Let's go."

Michael stepped forward and helped Sam get Sawyer back to his feet as he groaned in pain and stuck his arm back to his side in aggravation. "I got it," he told them as he flashed Michael a thankful grin and walked ahead of him. "I'm alright. I'm fine."

"Stubborn as a mule, that one," Michael commented as they watched Bernard attempt to help him and Sawyer just walk past him with a shake of his head.

"I'll say it again, if he really gets along with my brother, it's definitely based on mutual personality," Sam told Michael with a chuckle.

"The only difference is that while Dean may also be a bit stubborn, he's not a dick," Michael responded as they both moved to follow at the back of the group.

Sam shook his head in amusement as Michael glanced back over at him. "You really have no idea how wrong you are."

* * *

The relief in the group of tail section survivors had grown as they had exited the cover of the trees in the jungle and began the next part of their trek along the coast. It felt nice to be able to let go of some paranoia that had tainted Sam's thoughts and actions during this trip. It was just easier for him to be able to keep an eye on their group when he also didn't have to watch his own back. As tricky as the group of natives could be in the trees, any one of them could be spotted out in the open…he hoped.

Regardless, once the smooth and sandy terrain grew into tall dunes, he'd shifted to the back of the group with Eko and Michael so he could keep a watchful eye on Sawyer as his struggle across the island grew. He nodded over at Eko as Sawyer used his blade as a cane to hoist himself up to a new level and breathed deeply in and out from the excursion.

"He's getting worse, Sam muttered as Eko nodded his head in understanding.

"We need a break!" Eko announced as he shook his head at Sam in trepidation.

Ana Lucia stopped at the front and glanced back at them with a tired huff before she nodded in agreement. "Five minutes!"

Sam offered a water pouch to Sawyer with a grin before he joined Eko at the edge of the dunes. The taller man had a grim look on his face as he stared out at the uneven landscape that they would still have to climb. The elevation became steeper than anything they had already crossed and would have been an effort for any of them at full capacity. There was no way in hell that Sawyer would be able to make the climb.

Sam shook his head in disbelief as he bitterly realized that their few moments of calm would have to be cut short if they intended to get everyone to other side of the island in one piece. "What are you two looking at?" Ana Lucia asked from behind them.

Sam turned around and couldn't help the worried look that crossed his face as Eko nodded his head over to Ana Lucia. "We have to cut inland." Yep…there it was. Sam bit his lip as the jovial expression that had rarely been on Ana Lucia's face vanished and was replaced with one of disbelief.

"What?! Into the jungle?" She waited as Eko nodded down at her grimly before she shook her head at him. "They said their people were on the beach. If we keep walking..."

"The beach goes into a peninsula ahead," Eko explained as he pointed out towards the landscape. "It may not be passable."

"May not?" she asked skeptically.

"Let's not forget about Sawyer," Sam cut in. Ana Lucia and Eko both turned their attention to him as he cleared his throat at the extra attention. "Look, it's gonna be hard enough to try and pass that section with just us. If anybody slips, they could fall into the water or get injured. Sawyer is already injured, he won't even be able to climb that section of land for too long before his body gives out."

Ana Lucia's mouth dropped open in shock as she glanced over her shoulder at Sawyer and then back to Eko. "You're doing this to get the cowboy back faster? You would risk our lives to help him?"

"What's that even supposed to mean, Ana?" Sam interjected. "Reverse the roles. If another group of survivors left one of our people behind, how would you welcome the rest of the group? We can't just let something happen to that jackass just so we could avoid a possible attack. One which hasn't even come for weeks."

"That doesn't mean it won't come," Ana Lucia argued. "You said it yourself, you'd seen them," she glanced up at Eko.

"This is the only way that I know," Eko told her with certainty. "I won't gamble any man's life on a what-if scenario." He gave her a grim but stern look before he turned and walked away from them.

"You know," Ana Lucia began. "I think I liked him better when he wasn't talking."

"I agree with him," Sam told her. "I've seen gunshot wounds before, but they've normally been patched up by this time. His is getting infected with each minute that passes us by. He's not gonna last much longer without help from that doctor on their side."

Ana Lucia let out a deep breath as she shrugged her shoulders and re-strapped her knife to it's sheathe. "Do me a favor and keep an eye out when we get back into the trees," she requested as she walked away from him. "I have this feeling that something's about to go badly."

Sam nodded his head as Ana Lucia got everybody up and instructed them away from the beach and back into the treeline. Everybody in their group had mixed looks of panic or fear as they left the open sunlight for the few scattered rays that fell through the thick branches and leaves above them. Sam sincerely hoped that Ana Lucia's 'feeling' had only been paranoia and nothing that could be categorized as a premonition.

As they entered the cover of trees, Sam took a deep breath and held it as he stepped carefully across the jungle floor, making sure to take extra care to avoid any sticks or foliage that could possibly make any kind of noise. He mourned the calm that had settled around their group while they had trekked across the beach as he heard the sharp crack of a branch in front of him.

His gaze shot up with the rest of their group onto Libby as her face flushed red with shame. He bit back his own frightened response as everybody shushed her at once, as if she had deliberately created that noise. Sam knew she hadn't done it on purpose, but he couldn't help his irritation based on the fact that their entire group KNEW how careful they had to be in the trees. Their entire group.

Sam bit back a sigh as he heard Sawyer stumble into the clearing behind him while Jin spoke animatedly at him. Nobody had told the three new men about how careful they would need to be once they left the beach. It was the lack of details like that which would inevitably lead to them being found and captured…especially if somebody didn't quiet them down immediately.

Sam turned in time to see Sawyer stumble to his knees as Jin spoke in a louder and more panicked voice than he had before. "I'm fine," Sawyer grumbled as he picked himself up and continued to walk with a noticeable stumble to his steps. Sam moved forward to inform them of the situation at the same moment that Ana Lucia pushed past him as Jin began to loudly chastise Sawyer.

"I told you that I'm fine," Sawyer reiterated loudly.

Just as Jin began to argue again, Ana Lucia reached them and placed a finger to her lips in frustration. "Shhhh…shut up," she hissed.

All three of the men glanced up at her in surprise. "What? They can't talk at all?" Michael asked.

"If he talks, he's going to get us all killed," Ana Lucia informed them in a whisper.

"By what? Them?" Michael asked incredulously. "I thought they lived a day back that way?"

"How about you shut your mouth and get your buddy over here moving?" Ana Lucia hedged the question as she pointed over to Sawyer. She gave them each a serious look before she turned to walk back to the front of their group.

"What happened to you people?" Michael loudly asked as he stepped away from Jin and Sawyer towards her retreating form. He stood shock still and waited as Ana Lucia turned back around and closed the distance between them with a pinched expression. "You want us to take you back with us? Fine. But you want me to keep quiet then you need to tell me why I have to."

Ana Lucia screwed up her features as she glanced back at the people she had spent the last month and a half with. The people she had been forced to survive with whom she had come to trust out of their shared experiences. She turned back to Michael and bit down her anger at his pointless inquiries. "They came the first night that we got here. They took three of us…" she stopped as a knot formed in her throat and she worked to swallow it down. "Nothing happened for two weeks, then they came back. They took nine more. They're smart, and they're animals, and they could be anywhere at any time. Now we're moving through the jungle…their jungle…just so you can save your little hick friend over here. And if you think that one gun and one bullet is going to stop them…think again." She watched as the information she had fed them sank in as she pointed to each one of them. "So shut your mouth and keep moving." She turned and started the walk back to the front of the group in order to keep everybody constantly moving.

"They took my son," Michael hissed as Ana Lucia stopped. She could hear the despair in his voice and couldn't help but feel the same thing. Those monsters had taken several people in their group, not to mention children for god knows what. She glanced back at him from over her shoulder and conveyed what she hoped was a passive expression.

"They took a lot of things."

* * *

For most of Sam's life, he had thought of his brother as a superhero. How else were you supposed to categorize a person that gave up their own comfort and security in order to ensure yours? It wasn't until his teenage years that Sam had grown to feel sorry for Dean as he constantly had to take the brunt of their father's commands and lessons with no argument. Especially when it was his sole purpose to fight John Winchester at every turn when it came down to those same lessons and commands.

It wasn't until Sam had lost Jessica and joined his brother in the hunt that he came to the realization that the years without his brother had turned Dean into the most stubborn jackass alive. At least, that's how Sam had felt until he had met Sawyer.

Sam stayed at the back of the group and kept a vigilant eye on Jin as he half-carried/half-walked Sawyer through the jungle and waited for the inevitable moment when he would have to help with that task. If Sawyer had been bad before, he was definitely walking on borrowed time right now.

"Here, at least let me help you…" Bernard requested from in front of them. His expression was dour as his eyes shined bright with the sympathy that any rational person would feel to Sawyer's plight.

Jin spoke quickly as he brushed him off and Bernard couldn't help but scoff good naturedly at the rebuke as he turned and continued to walk in front of them. At the reproach Bernard had been given, Michael finally turned around and walked back towards them to help. "I got it," Michael spoke up as Jin brushed him off as well. "I said I got it, man. Take a break." Jin shook his head and spoke again as Michael stopped them both.

"What?" Sawyer spoke up weakly. Even with his sapped strength, he still managed to sound irritated and hostile. "You suddenly give a damn about me?" Michael stared Sawyer down incredulously as Sawyer removed his arm from around Jin's shoulders with a pained gasp. "Leave me alone. Both of you. I got it."

Sawyer stood up straight and hobbled away from them for a few steps before he collapsed forward on the path. Jin, Michael and Same rushed forward, each of them panicked as they crouched down next to his unconscious form. "Hey, hey, hey…" Michael remarked as he placed Sawyer's head in his lap and tapped at his cheeks. "Okay. Hey, Sawyer, hey you okay?"

Sam placed the back of his hand against Sawyer's sweaty forehead and panicked at the heat emanating from it. His fever had gotten ever worse than before. "He's burning up worse than before." Sam pulled his hand back in surprise as Sawyer weakly opened his eyes and glanced up at Michael in confusion before his memory seemed to return with his pain. "I would have left you behind."

"Shut up, man. Don't try that." Michael warned him.

Shame replaced the pain in Sawyer's features as the fiery spark in his eyes dulled down considerably. "I did leave you behind."

"Yeah, well, good thing I ain't you," Michael told him seriously. Sawyer smiled up at Michael for the dig before it slipped from his face and his eyes rolled back into his head. "No, no, hey, Sawyer. Sawyer, hey."

Jin stood up in a panic and motioned over at the people that had watched the scene play out before them. "Water! Water!"

"I'm not sure we'll be able to get him to swallow any water," Sam muttered as Libby knelt down and handed him a full water pouch. Sam nodded up at Michael to keep his head steady as he pulled off the lid and slowly poured some of the water into his mouth. He cursed as it either pooled in his mouth or spilled down the sides of his face.

"What's the matter with him?" Michael asked.

Sam reached forward and brushed his fingertips against Sawyer's face with a wince as he closed Sawyer's mouth and tilted his head back. "He's burning up. I'd say it's a mixture of dehydration and his wound being infected."

"We gotta keep moving," Ana Lucia spoke up over the hysteria.

Michael glanced up at her in shock as he shook his head incredulously. "What did you just say?"

"I said that we gotta keep going," she clarified, a cold steel in her voice.

Sam shook his head as Jin reacted and stood up to shout at her while Michael fixed him with a look of disbelief. "Ana, we can't just leave him here."

"He's slowing us down," she reminded Sam.

"Yeah, because he's getting worse and we're pushing him enough as it is," Sam told her as he stood up and motioned down to the unconscious man.

"Is this because he's friends with your brother?" Ana Lucia asked curiously. "Is that why you're willing to risk us becoming sitting ducks for someone like him?"

"No," Sam sneered. "I'm doing this because he's in the same situation as us and doesn't deserve to get left behind."

"Look, maybe if we just rest a little while, he'll regain consciousness," Libby suggested hopefully.

"Rest? Here?" Ana Lucia scoffed. "Do you remember what happened to us? What they did to us? Do you remember Goodwin?"

A silence settled over the group as the images of Goodwin's death flew through Sam's head. Of course he remembered Goodwin, he had been the one to take care of that imposter. "Ana's right, maybe we should just push on," Cindy announced as fear crept into her voice.

"Hey, you know what?" Michael announced from his position on the ground. "I don't remember Goodwin. And I'm really sorry about whatever happened to him, but I don't care," he grabbed the water pouch from Sam and poured a small amount in his hand as he cupped it over Sawyer's heated skin so a few drops fell to soothe him.

"He's right," Sam agreed. "We're no better than them if we let our collective fear pretty much condemn someone to death. There are more than enough of us, so we can carry him back to his camp."

"I'll do you one better," Michael announced as he gently placed Sawyer's head on the ground and stood up. "Mr. Eko? Sam? Can you both help me make a stretcher?" Sam and Eko exchanged identical looks of shock before they both nodded over at him, which he returned with a smile. "And Bernard, I need 4 sticks…sturdy ones…about 5 feet long."

"Yeah, you got it," Bernard announced as he jogged away from the group to look for the requested supplies.

Sam smiled over at Michael as he shrugged at the attention. "I built a raft that would have gotten us rescued if we hadn't been attacked. A stretcher should be nothing."

"You're actually going to carry your friend the entire way?" Ana Lucia asked.

"Of course we're going to carry him," Sam answered for Michael as he left to help Bernard gather supplies

* * *

Sam couldn't help but be completely impressed with Michael. The man could definitely work his way around a few sticks and some vines. "I have to say, if you managed to build a raft as good as this stretcher, I'm shocked anybody managed to sink that mother."

"I built two, actually," Michael informed him and chuckled at the puzzled expression on Sam's face. "The first raft…my kid ended up burning down. He told me that he didn't want to leave the island." He stopped what he was doing and stood up straight as a wistful look crossed his face. "Looking back on it, I probably should have listened to him."

"Hey man, you'll get him back," Sam told him as Michael nodded his head nonchalantly. "I'm not trying to blow smoke up your ass, but there's no way I'm gonna let those bastards get away with taking your kid or the people in our group. I know Dean'll agree with me when I meet back up with him."

Michael smiled wearily over at him before he glanced up at the sky. "Sun's almost set, we should get Sawyer loaded up and go."

Sam followed Michael's gaze up to the sky and nodded his head in agreement as he reached down and grabbed the stretcher. They both jogged over to the spot where they had left Sawyer with Jin and Sam dropped down to check his forehead as Jin removed the wet cloth he had arranged there. "No change," Sam muttered as he got up and laid out the stretcher right next to him. "Eko, we need your help here," Sam called over to him.

Eko walked over to them and squatted down next to Sawyer's right shoulder as Jin, Michael and Sam each took another side. Within seconds, they had Sawyer's limp form lifted and positioned on the stretcher as he groaned slightly in pain.

"That's good, right?" Michael asked about the noise Sawyer had made.

"He's barely conscious," Libby told them as she took the offered cloth from Jin and repositioned it on his forehead. "He'll make some noise, but if we don't get him some help soon, that fever has the capacity to get worse and cook his insides."

Sam could tell that Ana Lucia was less than happy about the lack of light they had left as they exited the clearing and embarked on the next leg of their trek through the jungle, but her happiness was the last thing on his mind. He could smell the rain in the air and knew that they were in for a storm soon. Whether it be big or small, Sam knew that it would still slow them down considerably as they carried Sawyer through the jungle.

They had barely been walking for an hour when they were forced to stop at a steep embankment in their path along a river. It extended as far as they could see, so Sam knew walking around it would be out of the question. He slowly lowered his end of the stretcher onto the ground as he stared up at the elevation in misery and let out a deep sigh along with Michael. How in the hell were they supposed to get Sawyer all the way up that climb? He almost lost the last bit of patience he had as Ana Lucia glanced back at him and motioned down to the unconscious man with a raised eyebrow.

"Sawyer owes me big time for this one," Michael muttered as he perused the climb one last time before he started shouting out instructions for all of them to form a chain at different points in the climb. It was tedious and a pain in the ass, but as they all worked collectively to get Sawyer up the embankment, Sam couldn't help but be proud of the outcome. As the first drops of rain fell, they had managed to get him all the way up, laid him down and went to work lowering thick branches for the others to pull themselves up with.

Sam collapsed in exhaustion after he helped Libby the rest of the way up and smiled over at Jin as he checked on Sawyer. "Wait, where's Cindy?" Ana Lucia broke through the silence.

Sam sat back up and glanced around the clearing before he shot to his feet and peered over the edge of the embankment. "She was just here," Bernard told them.

"No, she was down there," Sam corrected him. "Did anybody help her up here?"

"Cindy! Cindy!" Ana Lucia yelled as she ignored Sam's inquiry. Sam could understand her panic completely. They had never managed to take anybody in their group this swiftly before and so in the open.

"Did they take her?" Libby asked, her eyes wide with fear.

"How could she just be gone?" Michael asked incredulously as he peered over the embankment with Sam.

"This is what they do," Sam muttered to him. "It's how our numbers have dwindled down since the day of the crash."

"I'm going after her," Ana Lucia announced as she headed to the edge of the embankment. Eko grabbed her arm and shook his head before she could go any further as she tried her hardest to wretch out of his grasp. "Ana Lucia…no! We stay together…if we split up, we give them what they want," he told her.

Anguish filled Ana Lucia's features as she finally pulled her arm away from Eko and pointed an accusing finger up at him. "This is all your fault."

"Ana!" Sam snapped.

"Yours too, Sam!" Ana Lucia shouted before she turned back to Eko. "We never should have gone through the jungle. You risked our lives to save him and he's already dead. This one's on you."

She sneered at Eko before she turned and walked back towards Sam, his expression one of shock as she shook her head at him in disgust. "You're such a hypocrite."

Ana Lucia stopped and spun around to face him, her glare shooting daggers at him. "What was that?"

"You heard me," Sam growled as he advanced on Ana Lucia. "You're completely fine if somebody dies as long as it's in an effort to save your life, huh? Did everybody here know that it was me that killed Goodwin?"

Sam watched as Libby's jaw dropped, Bernard shook his head and Eko closed his eyes in regret. "I stopped him from killing Ana Lucia, which he was moments from." He turned back to Ana Lucia and was semi-satisfied to see that her complexion had paled marginally. "I didn't leave you behind then and I won't leave him behind either."

Ana Lucia opened her mouth to respond as the wind rustled around them and she stopped dead, her eyes wide. She glanced up at Sam in fear and swallowed thickly. "Did you hear that?"

_Sawyer._

_It's the brothers that help us._

Whispers. "Who said that?" Sam asked as he spun around and faced the terrified looks from the rest of the people in their group. He straightened up as his gaze darted back and forth in panic. "Seriously, who said that?"

_I know it all, I know it all._

_She got cut and burned up._

_Did she see?_

_The angels are coming._

_The necklace will save her._

"What the hell is that?" Michael demanded as Ana Lucia drew her gun and pointed it in several directions. Sam still hadn't seen anybody that could get close enough to create whispers that close to each of them.

"It's them," Bernard hissed.

"Oh god," Libby cried in fear.

"Run!" Ana Lucia shouted.

As the sun sank lower into the sky, the rain started to pour down on them as they all ran away from the whispers. With each frenzied step that Sam took, the whispers remained consistent in the air around them, almost as if they were being followed.

_The angels are coming._

_Pray for help._

_Give her the necklace._

"Walt…WALT!"

Sam slowed down as he heard the whispers become less disembodied as Ana Lucia stopped with him and pointed her gun in front of her.

"Walt!"

Ana Lucia spun around and fired her gun at the noise in front of her as the rest of their group stopped behind her. "Shannon!" Sam held Ana Lucia back as a figure stumbled further into their view, the shock clear on her face as she cradled her chest before she collapsed back against a dark skinned man as he caught her and lowered her to the ground.

From across the clearing and through the heavy rain, Sam could just barely make out the bloody wound on the girl's chest in front of them as the dark skinned man spoke softly to her and tenderly stroked her face. Sam could see the myriad of emotions flash across Ana Lucia's face as she lowered her gun and continued to watch as the man comforted the girl until her eyes closed and her chest stilled enough to signify that her life had left her body.

He breathed in deeply and pulled Ana Lucia behind him protectively as the dark skinned man lowered the girl to the ground completely and stood up to face Ana Lucia, a murderous look on his face.

**Author's Note: First, let me address that this is the last chapter to feature two separate sides of the survivors, because Chapter Four of Swan Song Station will be Sam and Dean reuniting. YAY! Second, let me apologize for the amount of time that past between Chapter Two and this one. I know I had promised two weeks-ish, but I did not intend for that "ish" to translate into two months. This has been a helluva time for me, workwise. Good news is that I'm taking half of the next week off for a bit of a "stay-cation" and I intend to get the next chapter written and posted in that time. You all can bank on that! Special special special thanks go out to RedEYES-Fallen, TrappedInWonderland, The Archivist613, elmoisemo6, Arlena4815162342, The Sun Will Shine Clear, Endgame65, redladybug12, Guest, Ella Ellington, JJxWillxProtectxYou, dharma-queen2342, Clare, LH and mirrorsedge14 for all the kind reviews. I love you guys so much!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

**Disclaimer: I do not own LOST or Supernatural.**

_Dean let out a deep sigh when he felt the familiar throb behind his temples as it, predictably, began to form. "So, have you found it yet?" He cradled his cell phone against his ear with his shoulder as he sat hunched behind the Impala's dashboard and stared out across the street in earnest. He breathed in deeply to calm himself down and then released it before he leaned forward and rested his forehead against his steering wheel. _

"_Yeah, I found it alright."_

"_Then, what's the problem?" His father asked impatiently as he translated Dean's tone and breathing into frustration._

"_I was a few hours too late, alright?"_

_Dean waited as the silence from his cell phone stretched into several seconds before his father spoke again. "What do you mean you were too late? Did another hunter get to it first?"_

"_No, not exactly," Dean told him. He turned his attention back to the police station across the street and shook his head ruefully. "From what I've been able to gather, it took on the form of some punk kid and then it went and got itself arrested." He grimaced at the steady stream of police officers that filed in and out of the building and couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. He imagined that this is what Clark Kent probably felt like when he was in close proximity to Kryptonite. "By the way, how often have you heard of a shifter letting itself get arrested instead of just...shifting?"_

"_First I've ever heard of that happening," his father admitted. "Maybe it has some sort of plan that involved getting arrested."_

_The silence between the two of them stretched on again before John loudly cleared his throat. "Look, it doesn't really matter if we have to take care of it in a jail cell or wait to see if he gets released. It's escalating and it won't be long before it leaves behind another dead body. We have to get it while we know what its face looks like."_

"_What do you expect me to do? Get myself arrested?" Dean hissed into his cell phone. "Or maybe I should just go and pay that douche-bag's bail and then put my knife into it right when we leave the police station?"_

"_You know what, now would be a good time to tone down the attitude," his father informed him in a tone that told Dean that it wasn't a request. Dean sobered immediately and glanced back across the street at the police station with narrowed eyes. _

"_Sorry, sir" Dean muttered behind clenched teeth. "It wouldn't do me any good anyways. Apparently, this shifter's form is wanted for shooting a cop. I haven't worked out if it actually did the shooting or if it's taken on the form of the person that did the shooting."_

"_Good work, I guess," his father told him indifferently. Dean wasn't surprised. It seemed like, lately, if he didn't have a successful and finished hunt to report to him, then his father was hardly interested. Geez, when had they both gotten to this point? He moved to end the call as his father's voice stopped him. "Oh…and by the way," John began. Dean could hear a strange lilt as it dripped from his father's tone and he let out a deep sigh as waited, patiently, for him to finish. "I thought I should let you know that I figured out why you volunteered for this hunt in the first place."_

_Dean sat up straight and opened his mouth to defend himself as his father beat him to the punch. "I know about your brother's mock trial or whatever it is that he's leading this Friday," his dad told him. "So what…did you plan to hang out in the back and observe him? Maybe get a good idea of just what he abandoned his family and responsibilities for?"_

_Dean still had the voicemail on his phone that Bobby had left for him two weeks prior. Sam had called Bobby to fill him in on his life at college and had been excited to be one of the youngest pre-law students invited to lead a mock trial. True to form, Bobby had been filled to the brim with pride and had spilled all of the details to Dean. He hadn't even needed time to think before he'd decided that he'd be there to represent their family and had asked Bobby to find him a hunt in the area. If he had a hunt, then he could quickly excuse the trip away for his father._

"_Look, I'm not doing this with you right now," Dean told him in a strained voice. "I admit that I intended to check in on Sam and that's all. However, I have no intention of doing that if I don't get this hunt done first. This hunt is my number one priority." He slammed his cell phone shut and threw it across the car in anger. _

_What was he supposed to do? What remained of his family was broken and he couldn't see a resolution anywhere in sight._

* * *

Sam sucked in a horrified breath as he watched the rage on the man's face build as he stared Ana Lucia down murderously. He very gently laid the slain woman in his arms down on the jungle floor before he jumped up with a grace the Sam had only ever seen from a trained soldier…from his father, his father's friends and he and his brother.

"Sayid!" Michael exclaimed in warning as the man, Sayid, stalked towards Ana Lucia. He reached behind his back and withdrew the gun that he had stashed in the back of his pants and pointed it directly at her.

"Sayid, no!" Michael yelled.

Sam stepped forward and moved directly into Sayid's path and held up his hands in surrender to stop him. He visibly relaxed as Sayid came to an abrupt stop in front of him and took the opportunity to assess him up and down.

His entire life had been tiered by a specific set of rules designed to ensure his survival during any hunt. Specific rules that his father had adopted from his Marine Corps days and tailored for the activities that they would have to engage in.

_Never drop your guard. _

It was one of the more important rules that he had ever learned and it still amazed him that after all these years, he still didn't take it as seriously as he should have.

Stars blazed across Sam's vision as he landed face first in the fresh mud and let out a deep groan of pain. He couldn't remember the last time in his life when he had been punched as hard as he just had, which was bizarre considering he wasn't a stranger to getting thrown around in training or by some nasty creature. He blinked several times in an effort to clear his vision and winced as his fingertips brushed against the broken skin next to his right eye. That was definitely gonna leave a mark

"No, stop!" he heard Libby yell as Michael ducked down next to him and pulled him several feet away from his current position.

"No, wait, what's happening?" Sam slurred as he lifted his head up at the rain soaked clearing to see Eko and Sayid as they wrestled around in the muddle, violently. "No, I gotta help Eko."

Sam staggered to stand as Michael held him back with a hand on his shoulder. "Don't get involved in this man…Sayid already cold-cocked you once."

Sam blinked again to clear his vision as he saw Sayid pin Eko down on the ground and push the barrel of his gun right into the skin of his forehead. He shook his head and moved forward a step to help as Ana Lucia brushed past him with a branch and knocked Sayid over the head with it. Sam let out a breath of relief as Sayid fell down into the mud…unconscious.

"Hey, hey…" Michael protested as Ana Lucia pulled out her gun, spun around and pointed it directly at him.

"Don't move!" She shouted as her eyes widened in fear and she moved her gun back and forth between each person in the clearing. "Nobody move!" She glanced back at Eko as he sat up completely and leaned over Sayid to check him for injuries. "Does he have anything else on him?"

"What?"

"He just had a gun to your neck," Ana Lucia reminded him incredulously. "Check to see if he had anything else on him."

"Ana, he didn't have that gun on Eko for any malevolent reason," Sam argued with her as he shook off the last of his dizziness. "He's clearly grieving…you just need to calm down."

"Like hell I do," she spat as she pulled out the clip on her gun to check the ammunition as Michael stepped towards her. "Hey, put it down," he demanded as he pointed at the gun in her hand.

Ana shook her head in determination as she pointed her gun straight back at him. "Stop."

He stopped immediately and threw her a shocked look of derision. "Are you crazy?" he asked as he sneered at her weapon. "Don't point that at me."

"I said stop!"

"What is your problem, huh?!" Michael shouted. Libby and Bernard joined in with Michael as they pleaded with her to lower the gun and calm down. Ana glanced back and forth between each person as they tried to speak over the other one in an effort to get their point across and was quickly losing the last amount of patience she had. Sam could see it on her face as the panic in Ana Lucia's eyes quickly escalated and she pointed her gun away from everybody in the group. She shut her eyes and fired a warning shot into the jungle that collectively silenced everybody's argument.

"Ana!" Bernard shouted as Jin moved forward to protect his friends.

Sam put a hand up and stopped Jin as he shook his head at the Korean man with a grim look. He glanced back at Ana Lucia and stepped forward to pull Michael behind him before he faced her head on. "Ok, Ana…you need to stop this, right now."

"I don't," she told him with finality. "I also don't need advice from you." She turned to Eko and let out a deep breath before she nodded down to Sayid's unconscious form. "We need to tie him up."

Eko stood back up and appraised her with a look of disdain before he glanced back down at Sayid as remorse flooded his features. "I'm not tying him up."

"He tried to kill you," Ana Lucia argued.

"You know that's not true, Ana," Sam told her as Eko could only glance down at the man he had fought in shame. He sneered at Ana Lucia one last time before he stepped over Sayid and walked over to Sawyer to check on him, as Ana Lucia followed his movement with a hurt look of betrayal on her face.

"You," Ana Lucia announced as she composed herself and pointed her gun at Libby. "You do it," she motioned down to Sayid as Libby shot her an incredulous look. "Tie him. Use the vines from the stretcher."

"Hey, if we take that thing apart we won't be able to..." Michael began.

"Shut. Up!" Ana Lucia commanded as she pointed her gun back at him.

"Ok, that's enough!" Sam snapped as he stepped forward and shook his head at Ana Lucia when she retrained her gun on him. "If you wanna shoot me, shoot me, but we're not taking apart that stretcher. If you want to tie him up so badly, you'll have to find the vines somewhere else."

"I didn't ask…" she began.

"I don't give a shit what you did," Sam spat as his eyes filled with fury. "I didn't save you so that you could hold up a loaded gun, scare everyone in our group and do this." He stepped away from her as he heard her order Libby and Bernard to gather vines so that Sayid could be tied up. Sam stopped at the young girl she had shot and tilted his head as he stared down at her. She looked familiar to him.

* * *

"Hey Rose," Dean greeted the older woman with a smile as he set a heavy box down on the table across from the spot where she had set herself up to chop fruit.

She eyed the box with a critical nod before she turned a look of disbelief on him and waved her knife in his direction. "I know you didn't just set a dirty box full of old parts down on the table where we all prepare our food and eat."

Dean glanced down at the box and smirked as he held up his hands in surrender. He quickly pulled it off of the table and set it down on the sand next to his feet with an embellished flourish. "So sorry, ma'am."

"That's ok, honey," Rose told him with an eye roll at his dramatic act. "What is all that stuff anyways?"

"Just some spare parts I've been gathering up for Sayid to use in the hatch," Dean told her with a nonchalant shrug. "I thought I saw Jack here a moment ago."

"You did indeed," she confirmed as she put another piece of fruit on the table in front of her and set to work on chopping it up.

Dean waited for a few moments for her to embellish further before he chuckled at her cavalier attitude. "Ok, well…is he still on the beach?"

"Oh no, honey, someone hit a golf ball into the water trough and he went out into the jungle to investigate," she told him as she held out a bowl filled with some of the fruit she had cut up for him. "I swear, if you didn't know that man was a doctor before, just the way his eyes glaze over when he sees a golf ball would be the dead giveaway."

Dean smiled as he grabbed a chunk of orange fruit and popped the tangy, spongy substance into his mouth. He chewed on it and swallowed as his stomach grumbled loudly and he quickly realized that he hadn't eaten all day. "Sounds like you could use some more," Rose laughed.

Dean nodded his head as he grabbed another piece and quickly ate it. "Hey, Rose…you got any kids on the outside?"

"Oh no, just my husband," Rose told him with a chuckle. "Although, I suppose that he's child enough. Why do you ask?"

"You just have that motherly vibe," Dean admitted with a shrug as he grabbed another piece of fruit. "You take care of everyone here from behind the shadows and don't expect a thanks or anything back. I'd almost forgotten what that felt like."

Rose stopped her chopping as she glanced up at Dean with a look of sympathy on her face. "Oh honey, did you lose your mother?" Dean winced as the fuzzy memory assaulted his mind of when he had been forced to carry his baby brother out of their burning home and waited outside for his mother and father to join them. Even as a child, he'd known something was incredibly wrong when only his father had emerged and scooped Sam and himself up to carry them further away from the danger. The last time he had seen his mother alive had been for her to sing him to sleep that very night. To this day, he still couldn't listen to the Beatles without getting nauseous.

"Well, I figure if Jack's out and about right now, he'll eventually find his way back to the hatch, right?" He hedged the question as he snagged another piece of fruit and chomped down on it.

Rose let out a deep sigh at his attempt to steer the conversation away from a painful memory and nodded her head towards the jungle. "That's a good bet. Besides, if Jack isn't there still, I'm pretty sure Sayid will be."

"Not if he's still on his little date with Shannon," Dean murmured as he hefted the box back up and gave Rose a wide smile. "Thanks for the fruit."

"Anytime, honey," she told him with that same motherly smile.

* * *

Sam offered Eko some assistance as he tried to get Sawyer to drink some water, but it had proven to be a worthless effort. He was barely conscious and even the simple task of drinking water was too much for his body to undertake. "Look, I don't care how far off the reservation that she's gone," Sam began as he glanced back at Ana Lucia while Libby tried to talk her down. "He needs a doctor and we're gonna have to just head out soon to make that happen. Before it's too late."

Eko glanced back at Ana Lucia in disdain before he nodded his head in agreement as he laid a damp cloth on Sawyer's burning forehead. "Untie me," they both heard an accented voice demand from across the clearing. Sam stood up and watched as Ana Lucia moved to the edge of the clearing and stared down at Sayid.

"I'm not…"

"UNTIE ME!" He shouted as Ana Lucia flinched away from him with a terrified gasp.

"Ok, this is ridiculous enough…we have to go now," Sam muttered as Eko nodded and stood up to grab the stretcher from the front. Sam mirrored his actions and grabbed the stretcher at Sawyer's feet as both silently counted down before they hoisted him off of the jungle floor together.

"Ana…" Libby warned. Sam rolled his eyes before he shot Libby a dark glare regarding the fact that she would even think to nark on them at a time like this. He ignored the look of shock that Ana Lucia shot him as she turned around and tilted her head in question.

"What are you doing?" she asked as she stalked towards them. She turned and walked backwards right next to Sam as she stared up at him in a panic. He did his best to take no notice of her wistful expression and instead focused on Sawyer's weight as it settled evenly between himself and Eko enough for them to start to walk out of the clearing.

"Hey man, don't worry about him. We're gonna make sure he gets back to your camp," Sam informed Michael as he pointedly ignored Ana Lucia's desperate tone. "We'll make sure your doctor is able to fix him up."

Michael smiled over at him and nodded his head in gratitude as Ana Lucia placed a pleading hand on his arm. "Don't leave, please."

"I can't keep saving you, Ana," Sam told her wearily as he kept his gaze focused in front of him. "I already have blood on my hands because of it, and I refuse to sit back and allow him to die while you have an internal battle of morals."

He could just make out the shine of unshed tears in her eyes from his peripheral vision as she turned and stomped over to Eko in desperation. "If that were you, he'd let you die."

"I'm not doing it for him," Eko told her as they left the clearing. "I'm doing it for me."

Ana Lucia knew when her efforts were lost and stopped to allow them to continue out of the clearing as her shoulders slumped in defeat, the possessive grip on her gun retained. Sam and Eko picked up speed as they used the intended trajectory of the sun to get as far away from the clearing they had left as possible. They would either run into somebody soon or just hit water and then have to turn back.

After almost an hour of traversing the rugged terrain while they balanced Sawyer simultaneously, a slight noise caught Sam's attention and he stopped quickly and stumbled as Eko kept walking. They both righted Sawyer before he fell to the ground before Eko fixed Sam with a questioning glare. "What is it?"

"Do you hear that?" Sam asked as he strained his ears. Eko stood tall and stared up at the trees as he heard the muted voices that Sam had heard.

"It could be them."

"This far out?" Sam questioned. "It might be his people instead." They both stood for a few more valuable seconds and seemed to be in the middle of the same inner battle before they each let out a relinquishing sigh. "At least if it's them, we'll get to figure out why they've been taking our people." Oh yeah, that was Sam alright, always finding the silver lining.

As they each moved towards the voices they had heard, they both made a conscious effort to keep their noise to a minimum. It wouldn't do them any good if they charged into any amount of unassuming people and either terrified them or made themselves easier prey. "You may want to move," they heard a jovial voice suggest before the voice lost any amount of joviality. "What?"

Sam and Eko exited the trees, both slightly tired from the strain of walking with Sawyer's added weight and Sam was still in pain from the broken bruise on his face. He let out a deep sigh as a man and a woman appeared before them, both on alert as the man stepped in front of the woman protectively and raised a golf club in defense.

Really? A golf club?

"Whoa, whoa," Sam told them as he gently set down his end of the stretcher and held up his hands in a placating manner. "We're not here to hurt you. We're just looking for the doctor."

"Oh my god, Jack," the woman cried as she rushed out from behind him and ran to the stretcher. "It's Sawyer."

Jack tore his attention away from the two men in front of him and looked down at the stretcher in shock before he recovered and ran over to Sawyer. He winced at how pale he looked and how clammy his skin felt as he placed the back of his hand on his forehead.

"He's burning up," Jack muttered to the woman as he nodded to Sawyer's side. "Kate, help me get him up."

"We can carry him to wherever you need to…" Sam began.

"I don't know you," Jack shouted as he stood up and advanced on him. "I don't know if you're responsible for this, but you better pray I don't find out that you are." He waited a few seconds as Sam audibly gulped at the rebuke and nodded before Jack knelt back down and helped Kate lift him out of the stretcher. He threw one of Sawyer's limp arms over his shoulder and supported his weight as he began the trek out of the jungle and back to the hatch.

"Jack, is he gonna be ok?" Kate asked as her voice broke at the sight of him.

"I don't know," Jack admitted as he continued walking as Sawyer groaned out in pain with each step. He could hear both men behind him as they followed after him and hoped for their sake that they hadn't been responsible for Sawyer's injuries. If they were responsible, he was positive that he wouldn't be able to stop Dean from killing them on site.

* * *

"Hey Dean, what are you doing down here?" Locke asked as he glanced up at Dean from his crossword puzzle.

Dean stopped in front of him and nodded down at the box in his hands with a shrug. "I gathered together a bunch of the spare parts and machinery for Sayid to use down here if he needed to. I wasn't sure I'd be able to find much more, so I went ahead and brought down what I had."

"Oh well…he isn't here right now," Locke shrugged at him. "I think he had something planned with Shannon so..."

"That's really happening then?" Dean asked with an incredulous smile. "Well, I guess if anybody could take on the task of taming that princess, it'd be Sayid. It can't be any more difficult than fighting in the Republican Guard." He shared a humorous chuckle with Locke before he breathed in deeply and resumed his trek towards the main bank of machines in the room.

"Hey, Dean...Enkidu's friend? It would be, uh...nine letters."

Dean set down the box on an empty table and scrunched up his features at the question as he turned back to Locke. "Uh...gesundheit?"

Locke shook his head absentmindedly as he began to fill an entry in, anyways. "No, but you were close...Gilgamesh."

"Ok, wait...how is that close?" Dean asked.

Locke finished his entry and beamed down at it before he nodded up at Dean. "Both of them start with a 'g'."

Dean snorted at Locke's logic as he shook his head and turned back to the box "Yeah, well...unless you have another crossword puzzle with Classic Rock or automobile questions, you'd better just stick to solving this one on your own," he informed him as he attempted to unpack each component and categorize them based on appearance.

"Oh, wait just a moment," Locke murmured as he searched back through the hints. "How about this one...Gregg in Classic Rock...that's Gregg with two g's. It looks like its six letters."

Dean thought for a moment as he picked up a half burnt doo-hicky and examined it before he smiled and glanced back at Locke from over his shoulder. "Allman," he told him before he set down the item and turned back around to appraise Locke with a look of disbelief. "Wait a minute, are you actually telling me that you didn't know who the founding member of The Allman Brothers Band was, but you know Gilgamesh's friends?"

"I'm more into current stuff," Locke excused with a shrug. "Like Charlie's band."

"Ah yes, Charlie's band," Dean told him with a smile. "They any good?"

"Coming from a guy that doesn't know The Allman Brothers Band?" Locke asked. "I like them very much."

Dean tilted his head in understanding with a smile and opened his mouth to speak again as he heard the sounds of someone coming down the stairs. "Sounds like our fearless leader is finally back from..."

"I got him. I got him," Jack muttered as he came down the stairs and into view. Dean stepped away from the table and almost went slack as he saw Jack currently trying to balance an unconscious Sawyer against his own body as he struggled to maintain his weight. He rushed towards them and threw Sawyer's other arm over his own shoulders as he helped Jack carry him further into the hatch.

"Where are we headed?" Kate asked as she skirted around them in a rush.

"Bathroom," Jack told her as he shot Dean a grateful nod and was able to walk much faster due to the help. "He's burning up. We've got to get him in the shower and bring his fever down."

Dean grunted as he and Jack gently set Sawyer down on the old bench in the shower and Dean brushed the back of his hand against Sawyer's clammy face. He was burning up...badly. "What in the hell happened?" Dean growled. "Why isn't he on the raft right now?

Jack ignored Dean as he brushed past him and began to examine Sawyer as best as he could with the tools at his disposal. "What can I do?" Kate asked from behind them. Dean glanced back at her and could see how pale her face was as she glanced at Sawyer in trepidation.

"Okay," Jack told her slowly as he kept most of his attention fixed on Sawyer. "Go through the medical stash. There's a bottle of Ofloxacin..."

"Ofloxacin," Kate repeated back insecurely.

"Ofloxacin...little white pills," Jack confirmed for her as he glanced back at her in dead seriousness. "Bring the alcohol and some gauge patches and strip that bed and make sure it has clean sheets on it." He waited a few seconds to confirm that all of his instructions had sunk in as Kate allowed her gaze to linger on the injured man in the shower while her sympathy turned to horror. "Kate?!"

She roused out of her musings and nodded at Jack as a fresh wave of tears gathered in her eyes. "Uh, yeah, yeah.

Dean watched as Kate scurried away from them before he turned back to Sawyer and winced in empathy. As Jack gathered a few more of the supplies from around the bathroom, he moved aside a part of Sawyer's shirt that seemed to be caked with blood and muttered out a curse. "He's been shot," Dean pointed out as Jack returned and examined Dean's find with narrowed eyes. "His wound looks a little worse than a typical gunshot wound, though."

Jack nodded in agreement as he gently brushed his fingers against the frayed and broken skin around the gunshot wound on Sawyer's shoulder as he stepped back and pulled Dean with him. He reached forward and turned the shower on to its coldest setting as Sawyer moaned in awareness.

Dean opened his mouth to ask, again, what had happened to Sawyer as Locke beat him to the punch. He turned around to face the new person in the room and couldn't help but notice the shocked look on Locke's face. He'd seen several emotions cross Locke's face since their crash, but this was the first time that he could remember shock being on that list.

"John, the button," Jack told him wearily as Dean finally heard the familiar low blip enter his hearing. He watched Locke hover for a moment longer before he left to take care of his responsibility.

"He has a point," Dean growled. "And...there's no button to distract me, so I want to know what the hell happened."

"Look, I don't know," Jack admitted with a tense shrug. "I was out with Kate, playing golf, and these two men came out of the jungle with Sawyer on a homemade stretcher. They asked for a doctor and I didn't think to stop and get an explanation of all the events leading up to this."

"What do you mean that two men just came out of the jungle?" Dean asked skeptically. "Were they our people?"

"No," Jack admitted as he shook his head. "But, I'm pretty sure if they were Ethan's people, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble to even bring Sawyer back."

"Where'd you leave these two guys?" Dean asked as his aggression returned immediately at the mention of Ethan. "I have a few questions that they're gonna need to answer."

"I actually think I heard them as they followed us back," Jack admitted as Dean nodded and stalked out of the bathroom. He nearly collided with Kate as she returned to the bathroom and righted her before he continued onwards to the main computer room.

"What happened?" Dean heard Locke ask in a genuinely curious voice. "Out there...what happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Dean snarled as he entered the computer room behind Locke. He stopped immediately as the two men across the room from him turned away from the Dharma logo on the wall to appraise Dean. His breath came in short puffs as his knees weakened and almost forced him off of his feet. "Oh my god…"

"Dean?" Sam asked in shock.

* * *

_Dean yawned wide as he continued to watch the police station across the street as the sun rose behind him. He needed to come up with a better plan soon or else he ran the risk that somebody else could get hurt. Plus, if he didn't get this hunt done with soon, then he'd miss Sam's trial thing and that had been the whole reason he'd even agreed to come to California in the first place._

_He muttered a curse as his cell phone blared to life with the opening chords of 'Ramble On' and he checked the caller ID to ensure that it wasn't his father._

_**-Bobby Singer-**_

"_Hey Bobby, how goes it?"_

"_Did you get it yet?" Bobby asked impatiently as he completely bypassed any pleasantries._

"_Nah, not yet," Dean told him as he straightened up behind the steering wheel. "Tell me something, have you ever heard of a shifter letting itself get arrested?"_

_Dean could hear the silence extend on the other end of his phone and wondered if his call had been dropped before Bobby let out a choked laugh. "Shifters don't get themselves arrested, you idgit. Not only do they not have to worry about getting shot since cops don't handle silver bullets, but they can usually just change form before they get made."_

"_Yeah, that's what I thought," Dean sighed as he opened the door of his car and slowly climbed out onto the sidewalk. He winced as his back popped a couple of times before he squinted his eyes against the harsh morning sun. He may have completely loved his car, but spending the night inside of it was not his cup of tea._

"_Why do you ask?" Bobby inquired._

"_Oh, because the bastard you have me chasing is sitting in a jail cell as we speak," Dean snarked. "I've been watching the damn precinct all night and I still can't wrap my head around why it would let itself get captured."_

"_You've been parked across the street from a police station all night?" Bobby chuckled. "If you had mentioned a church, I would have asked if you had burst into flames yet."_

"_Yeah, har har," Dean muttered at him as he slammed the door to his car shut. "Still doesn't change the fact that, for the first time, I'm waiting for the good old justice system to spit this bastard out so I can gank it."_

"_Just be careful," Bobby advised him. "It had to have a good reason to get arrested and I don't want you to go into this half cocked."_

"_I don't do anything half cocked," Dean argued as he walked the few feet to the Starbucks that was located a couple of doors down the sidewalk and entered it with a shudder. The smell of designer coffee interspersed with the sight of wannabe screenwriters scattered across the establishment really brought home just how much he hated Los Angeles. "Look, I'll call you back if I get any new information."_

"_Like I said, be careful," Bobby finished as Dean shook his head and snapped his phone shut. He waited behind a few people in line before he finally made his way to the counter where a smiling teenager beamed up at him._

"_Can I help you?"_

_Dean wondered how somebody could be so chipper at so early in the morning and bit back his bad mood for as long as he could as he rubbed his sleep filled eyes with the palm of his hands. "Coffee. Black," Dean muttered as the bubbly kid behind the counter tilted his head at Dean in concern._

"_Is somebody having a little trouble waking up this morning?" he cooed as Dean narrowed his eyes at the kid in agitation._

"_Well, I wouldn't be if I had that black coffee, like I ordered," he chastised him._

"_Would you like a Tall, a Grande or a Vente?" The man asked, his smile growing with each passing second._

"_I want a black coffee," Dean practically growled. "Just a black coffee."_

"_Well, I need the size, silly," the man chastised as Dean groaned low and rubbed at his throbbing temples. This had just become the most excruciating hunt he'd ever been on and he hadn't even had any contact with the shifter yet. _

_Just to be on the safe side, he glanced back over his shoulder at the large display window at the front of the shop. His eyes widened as the shifter exited the police station and emerged into the early morning sunshine._

"_Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Dean muttered as he brushed past the people in line behind him and ran out of the establishment. He stopped on the sidewalk outside of Starbucks and watched the shifter as it glanced around a few times before its eyes landed squarely on Dean. It smiled wide at him and waved mockingly before it took off down the sidewalk it was on. He may as well have been wearing a neon sign that said 'I'm here to kill you.'_

"_FUCK!" Dean yelled as he moved to cross the street only to stop as a car barreled past him. He waited as another car passed and another as he stood helplessly and watched the shifter get further and further away from him. Why in the hell were there this many civilian cars that willingly traveled in front of a police station?_

_The traffic finally stopped as he ran across the street and looked up to see no trace of the shifter anywhere before him. "Damnit!" Just how in the hell was he supposed to explain this to his father?_

* * *

"Oh my god, I can't…" Dean regained his senses immediately as he strode forward at the same time that Sam did and met his brother halfway across the room as they both enveloped each other in a tight hug. Almost two months without the knowledge of his brother's wellbeing and the first moment that Dean got him back, he went into full on chick flick mode. What was wrong with him?

Dean pulled away from his brother and placed a hand on each of his shoulders as he studied him intently to make sure he was actually here in front of him. "Ooooh, what happened there?" Dean asked as he pointed to the blood crusted bruise on Sam's face. "You piss off a small child or something?"

Sam winced with a nod as he chuckled sheepishly. "Actually it was some guy…Sayid? I think?"

"Sayid did this to you?" Dean asked incredulously. "Geez, what'd you do, insult Shannon?"

Sam lowered his gaze to the floor sheepishly as he coughed in obvious discomfort. Dean furrowed his brow at Sam's reaction to his question as he heard Sawyer groan loudly from the bathroom. "Come on, Sammy…I need your help with this," Dean muttered as he pushed Sam towards the bathroom. "You were always better at first aid than I was and Jack could definitely use both of our help."

Sam opened his mouth to object as Dean continued to push him into the old fashioned bathroom where Sawyer was still sat down under a steady stream of water. "Jack, we're here to help," Dean announced. Jack reached forward and turned off the shower before he glanced back at the man in front of Dean with a look of distrust and shook his head.

"No…not him."

"He's my brother," Dean told him quickly as Sawyer began to shiver from the air that hit his wet skin. Jack's eyes widened at the announcement as Dean clasped his brother on the shoulder proudly. "He's even better than me at first aid, and you could definitely use the help."

Jack glanced between them for a few moments before he nodded his head and motioned to Sawyer. "Help me get him to the bedroom."

Dean and Sam both stepped forward and hoisted Sawyer up as Jack led them back to the bedroom and instructed them to place him softly on the bed. Kate entered with the antibiotics and narrowed her eyes at Sam before she handed everything off to Jack. "Here you go." Her eyes widened at Sawyer's current state and she visibly paled and held back a sob. "What's happening? Why is he shaking?"

"He's septic," Jack grimly informed them. "The infection's gotten into the blood stream. If the antibiotics don't bring the fever down he'll go into shock." Dean and Sam both nodded at the information as Kate looked ready to cry. "Hold him up."

Sam and Dean both moved to help Jack out as Kate stopped them with a vicious look to Sam. "No, I've got him," she snapped, pointedly, at the new man in the room before she climbed into the bed behind Sawyer and allowed him to rest all of his weight onto her. "Okay, I've got him."

Sam backed up behind Dean and watched as Jack placed a small pill in Sawyer's mouth followed by a small amount of water to wash it down. "Swallow it, swallow it, swallow it," Jack instructed as Sawyer coughed deeply and spit the water and pill back out into Jack's hand.

"Damnit Sawyer," Dean muttered as Sawyer moaned out from the pain. Sam stared at his brother in shock as he realized just how close he had gotten to the sick man in front of him. He wondered just what Dean had been doing the entire time they had been separated.

"I'll do it," Kate volunteered as she held her hand out to Jack for the pill.

"No, no, I've got it," Jack told her wearily.

"I can do it," she told him confidently. Jack nodded begrudgingly and handed over the pill to Kate as she stroked Sawyer's hot forehead soothingly. "Sawyer? Hey?" She waited for a response from him and gently kissed his forehead tenderly as she continued to stroke his hair. "You have to listen to me, okay? The only way that you are going to get better is if you take this pill. So, I want you to swallow it, okay? Okay, here we go." She put the pill into his mouth as Jack handed over the glass of water. She held it up to his lips and tilted it enough for him to swallow it down with the pill. "Good, good," Kate laughed as Sawyer coughed from the excursion.

"Nice job," Jack told her with a smile as he took the glass back from her. "I never did learn the whole whisper-in-the-ear thing in med school. "

"I've been telling you from day one that you have the worst bedside manner," Dean muttered as he clasped his brother on the shoulder. "We're gonna go and…" He led his brother out of the bedroom and back into the corridor as he shook his head at the absurdity of the entire situation. "Look, don't think that I'm not ecstatic to have you back, man. Because I really am."

"Yeah, I'd heard that you went looking for me at one point," Sam told him wryly. "Apparently, it's how you got this." Sam poked Dean in the shoulder and nodded in confirmation as Dean winced in pain and shot his brother an affronted look. "Yeah, why am I not shocked that you didn't even wait until you were healed from getting shot in the shoulder with an arrow before you were up and about again?"

"Dude, I'm just fine now," Dean argued before he shook his head at their tangent. "Look, I want to know how all of this happened," Dean told him calmly as he motioned back to the bedroom. From their current position, he could see the other man Sam had arrived with as he studied their cache of weapons in the gun vault. He glanced back up at Dean and Sam with a look of distaste as Sam pulled his attention back with a defeated sigh.

"What do you wanna know exactly?" he asked tiredly.

"How did Sawyer get injured?" Dean asked. "His wound…it looks like somebody shot him and then, just for fun, shot him again in the same spot."

Sam thought for a moment about how to approach this as a light bulb went off in his head. "Dean, do you remember that time when Dad dragged us up North so he could help Scott Jenkins hunt down that werewolf?" he asked.

"Of course I remember that," Dean told him with a nonchalant shrug. "The dumbass got drunk during downtime and shot dad in the leg. Stubborn ass didn't want to go to the hospital so he dug the slug out himself and…" Dean stopped as his eyes widened in recognition. "Wait a second…you think Sawyer dug a bullet out of his own shoulder?"

"I'm pretty sure," Sam told him with a nod. "Mind you, I don't know how he got shot in the first place or anything like that, but I've only ever seen a wound like his once before…on dad."

"Huh, you're right," Dean agreed as he mentally kicked himself. "You know, I thought it looked familiar when I saw it." He let out a deep sigh as he led Sam away from the corridor and back to the main computer room where Locke and the other man were in the middle of a deep conversation. "Ok, so…what exactly happened out there?" Dean asked as he casually leaned against one of the concrete walls.

"Recently?" Sam inquired as Dean nodded his head. "Look, Dean…plane crash aside, you should know that it hasn't exactly been a preverbal paradise on our side of the island this entire time."

"Yeah, Eko mentioned that your group was down to four people," Locke spoke up as Dean shot Sam a shocked look. Sam glanced over at Eko in annoyance as he let out a deep sigh and waited for his brother to overreact.

"Wait a second, are you telling me that only four people survived the plane crash on your side?" Sam rolled his eyes at his brother's predictability. That hadn't even taken three seconds.

"No, there are just only four of us left now," Sam told Dean as his jaw dropped at the information. "We had originally had twenty two people." Dean's panic went up a notch as a thousand different what-if scenarios assaulted his mind, each one focused on the fact that he could have lost his brother during the time since their crash. "This is what I'm talking about when I tell you that it's been rough on our side."

"Dean, there was an accident over there today," Locke gently told him as Dean turned his attention away from his brother and leveled it on Locke. "Shannon was shot." Dean stared at Locke for a few moments as he waited for the ah-ha moment and quickly realized that it wasn't coming. He could only guess by the solemnity in the room that Shannon hadn't survived.

He closed his eyes in grief at the news before he opened them back up to face his brother. He took in the shame that crossed his features as all the confirmation he needed. "Is that why Sayid hit you?" Dean asked incredulously. "Because you killed Shannon?"

Sam's eyes widened as they shot up to Dean's and he searched his features intently. He could see the accusation in his brother's eyes and was shocked that he could actually think that he was capable of that…even if Dean wasn't aware of his role in Goodwin's death. "No Dean, I didn't kill Shannon," Sam hissed at him.

"Then who did?" Dean demanded.

"Who did what?" Jack asked as he entered the computer room from the bedroom. Dean glanced past him and could see from his vantage point that Kate was still behind Sawyer in the bed, holding him and trying to comfort him. Dean could only imagine how painful it was for Jack to have to witness that amount of intimacy from Kate as she directed it to Sawyer.

"Jack, we have a problem," Dean announced as Jack let out a sardonic chuckle and motioned behind him to the bedroom.

"Yeah, I'm aware of that, Dean."

"No, it's worse than that," Dean told him slowly as he breathed in deeply and then released it. "Shannon was killed."

Jack stared over at Dean incredulously and opened his mouth before he closed it again and shook his head with a dry chuckle. "No, there's no way Shannon's dead."

"She is," Sam spoke up.

Jack stood still as he processed the fact that another member of their group was now dead. Not only that, but it had been Shannon, who had just lost her brother on this damn island weeks before. "How?" Jack asked as he just barely managed to suppress his rage.

"She was shot, apparently," Locke filled in for him.

"Ok, you two," Jack spoke up over his anger as pointed over to Sam and then Eko. "Sit down…now."

"Hell no, Jack," Dean growled as he stood up and held his brother back. "Look, I know you're upset about what's going on, but that doesn't give you the right to issue commands like that to my brother."

"Dean, Sawyer is in that room right now fighting a blood infection from a gunshot wound," Jack reiterated to Dean.

"Yeah, spare me your crocodile tears over Sawyer and his wellbeing," Dean sneered at Jack. "What's wrong, does a gunshot wound take precedence over bamboo shoots up his fingernails?" He stopped his rant as Jack's eyes widened at the reminder of Sawyer's torture at his own hands and Dean smiled victoriously. "Yeah, that's right, Jack. Sawyer told me what you and Sayid did to him."

"Look, I've already apologized for that," Jack told him as he walked away from Dean in a huff. He spun back around and fixed Dean with a pointed glare as he motioned over to the bedroom. "The fact of the matter is that right now, Sawyer is very sick and we don't even know where Michael and Jin are."

"They're alright," Sam spoke up softly from behind his brother.

"Sammy!" Dean chastised as he kept his attention focused on Jack.

"Look, if they're alright, then I just wanna know where they are," Jack requested as he held up his hands in front of him. "Just tell me where I need to go to find them."

"Jack, these two men aren't the problem," Locke cut in. "They brought Sawyer back…"

"Half-dead with a bullet hole in his shoulder, John!" Jack yelled. He turned back towards Eko and then fixed a glare at Sam. "Are either of you going to talk to me or are you just going to sit there and stay quiet?"

"Look, if you were speaking to me like that, I wouldn't say a word to you either," Dean commented as Sun interrupted them and ran full speed into the computer room. "Jack! Jack!" She stopped short as she took in the sight of the two new men in the hatch and glanced at Jack and Dean for an explanation just as Michael trailed in after her.

"Michael," Jack whispered with a smile as he stepped forward and enveloped him in a friendly hug. "Oh man, it's so good to see you again."

"Yeah well, we'll have to cut this reunion short," Michael announced as he glanced back at Sam and Eko. "We've got a problem."

"What's wrong now?" Dean asked wearily as he walked forward and clasped Michael on the shoulder in welcome.

"It's Ana Lucia," Michael announced as Jack, Sam and Eko all stiffened at the name. Dean pulled his hand away from Michael's shoulder and backed away from him as that name resonated in his mind over and over again. Ana Lucia. That wasn't a very common name. Then why did it sound so familiar to him?

* * *

"_So you did manage to find it again, right?" His father asked. Dean gritted his teeth as the irritation in his father's tone leaked out through his cell phone._

"_Yeah, I got some information about where it lived and where it hung out. It wasn't home so I went to the bar instead. I already checked…its inside," Dean confirmed for him._

"_Well, try your best not to lose it this time," his dad chastised him as Dean opened his mouth to respond. "Dean, was that..."_

"_Gunshots. I gotta go, dad," Dean snapped as he closed his cell phone and jumped out of his car. He waited for a lone car to pass him by before he ran across the street and towards the alley where he had heard the gunshots. He pulled out his own gun and his eyes widened as he entered and saw the back of a young woman as she breathed deeply in and out from panic._

_He stood at the alley's entrance and watched as she walked up to a fallen form and unloaded the rest of her gun into it before a sob escaped her throat. Dean stared, in shock, at the scene before him as he moved closer to her and inadvertently kicked the side of a bag of trash._

_He cursed and glanced down at the trash bag in agitation before he looked back up a the alley in time to see the woman as she spun around and pointed her gun at him, her steely eyes focused straight at him. "Who are you?"_

"_I'm nobody, I'm sorry," Dean told her as he held up his empty hand and his gun in surrender and backed up a step._

"_Don't move," she hissed as Dean stopped in his tracks and glanced behind her at the body she had unloaded her weapon into. _

"_Are you ok?" he asked in concern as he noticed the puffiness in her eyes for the first time._

"_Don't speak," she hissed as she kept her gun pointed straight at him. Dean nodded his head as he glanced down at the body for a better look and finally noticed the face of the shifter he had been tailing. It still hadn't changed. Maybe this had been its plan all along...it had someone coming after it and wanted this woman to think it was dead._

_He blinked in surprise as the shifter behind the woman stirred and opened its eyes before he glanced over at Dean with a triumphant smirk. "Hey, maybe you should..."_

"_Shut up!" The woman hissed again. She didn't even hear as the shifter silently moved to stand behind her as Dean raised his gun and pointed it over her shoulder._

"_Drop the weapon," she told him. "I'm a cop and I will fire."_

"_Sure, just let me..." he trailed off as he pulled the trigger on his gun and watched in satisfaction as the creature behind her fell against a dumpster from the impact. The woman's eyes widened in shock as she spun around and saw the man she had already shot as he stared down at the fresh wound in his chest in surprise before he sank to the ground, dead._

"_What the hell is going on?" She shouted hysterically. __  
_

_She spun back around and pointed her gun at Dean as he put his gun back behind his jeans with a sigh and held up his hands in surrender. "I shot him six times."_

"_It," Dean corrected her._

"_What?"_

"_It's not a him, it's an it," Dean told her as he lowered his hands into his pockets. "Also, I'm betting that when you shot it, you shot it full of regular old bullets. Mine happen to be silver."_

* * *

By the time Dean had finished that botched up hunt, Sam's trial thing had been long over and he had been left with a hysterical woman that had thought she had committed murder for revenge. She had bought the drinks and he had sat through her entire story about her justifiable contempt for this particular shifter. Afterwards, he had calmly explained to her what a shifter was and tried to comfort her about the fact that she wasn't a murderer.

"_You know, when I decided to kill that bastard, I didn't know it was a shifter, I thought it was just another human scumbag that made me lose my baby,"_ Ana Lucia had admitted to him towards the end of the night. _"Intent translates to the fact that I was willing to commit murder, and that makes me no better."_

Dean didn't exactly know why, but that statement had stayed with him long after she had left and he had carried it along with him on the following months since. Guilt was a funny thing and he had been genuinely intrigued that this woman's guilt stemmed from her intent rather than her actions.

"You remember how to get back out there, right?" Jack asked as he loaded a rifle with ammunition.

"Yeah, I think so," Michael confirmed with a nod of his head.

"Jack, just wait a second," Dean spoke up as he put up his hands in front of him. "Look, I think you need to stop for a moment and think about this before you go out there guns blazing and do something you regret. What if this was just an accident. You have to stop and think about this for a second."

"Think about what, Dean? Shannon's dead and Sayid's being held at gunpoint," Jack reminded him angrily. "You want to sit here and hope that situation resolves itself…be my guest." He handed Michael a loaded gun and worked to get another one loaded for himself. "Do you know how to use this?"

"Yes, sir," Michael told him as he inspected the gun he had been given.

"Dean, Ana Lucia really didn't mean to shoot that girl," Sam whispered in his ear as he turned a terrified look on him. "I know her, alright? She's scared right now, that's the only reason she's doing this."

"I know, Sammy, I know," Dean murmured as he wracked his brain for a way to hold Jack for just a moment so he could talk some sense into him.

"Enough! Please," Eko interrupted their preparation as he stood up from his seat and eyed the stock of guns wearily. Jack and Michael both stopped what they were doing as Dean, Sam and Locke turned to face him collectively. "What is it that you want?"

Jack lowered his weapon and threw a look of bemused shock to the larger man in front of him as he shook his head. "Excuse me?"

"Peace? Revenge? Justice? And you are going out with all these guns? What do you want?" Eko asked again.

The entire room fell silent as they all turned their attention to Jack as he thought through the question properly. "I just want all of our people back here safely. Your friend murdered…"

_Intent translates to the fact that I was willing to commit murder, and that makes me no better. _

"Jack, it had to be a mistake," Dean corrected him. "Trust me, I'm not happy about Shannon being killed either, but murder requires intent. You know that."

"Ana Lucia made a mistake," Eko reiterated as he agreed with Dean's assessment. He let out a defeated sigh as he nodded his head at Jack. "I will take you to her, but only you…and no guns."

"No," Dean spoke up. Everybody turned in his direction as he let out a deep breath under the scrutiny. "I'm going too. No guns are fine, but I'm going too."

**Author's Note: I think the lesson we've learned from Chapter Three to Chapter Four is that you can't trust a damn word I say. Some week, huh? For that miscalculation, I truly apologize, but fricken life, man. It just got in the way and I ended up having to do almost an entire rewrite on what I already had for this story. Big thanks to TrappedInWonderland, RedEYES-Fallen, elmoisemo6, JJxWillxProtectxYou, Fire Thief, The Sun Will Shine Clear, evil-step-sister, The Archivist613, Endgame65, redladybug12 and idowgetit for all of your kind words. I hope you guys like this chapter and I hope that the reunion lived up to what you guys have been waiting for! Until next time!**


End file.
